Ruth Davidson: Scots ‘bullied and hectored’ into supporting SNP Many Scots feel that they are being “bullied and hectored” into supporting the SNP because the party has falsely positioned […]

Many Scots feel that they are being “bullied and hectored” into supporting the SNP because the party has falsely positioned itself as speaking for the whole country, Ruth Davidson has claimed.

The Scottish Conservative leader said the SNP’s brand of nationalism had left people who disagreed with the party’s stance feeling “voiceless and helpless”.

“If people feel bullied and hectored into supporting the SNP, I don’t blame them” The i politics newsletter cut through the noise Email address is invalid Email address is invalid Thank you for subscribing! Sorry, there was a problem with your subscription. Ruth Davidson

Accusing Nicola Sturgeon of intentionally blurring the line between the views of Scotland and those of the SNP, she said those who opposed her were made to feel “illegitimate and phoney”.

The MSP made the comments on Monday evening in a lecture delivered to the Orwell Foundation in London, entitled “Nationalism should not be confused with Patriotism”.

Referencing the work of the author George Orwell, she said he had correctly identified nationalists as being obsessed with a single issue, overly sensitive to negative news coverage and as having an “indifference to reality”.

She claimed that the SNP had successfully managed to frame those who disagreed with its views as somehow “un-Scottish”, a tactic she said was highly effective.

“The nationalist politics identified by Orwell – the attempt to classify and label human beings into groups marked ‘good’ and ‘bad’ – has become a key part of our political practice in Scotland,” she said.

“And it has to be said that this has been pursued quite deliberately – so that many people who do not subscribe to the loudly advanced, so-called ‘good’ side of the argument feel voiceless and helpless.”

People have ‘had enough’

She added: “In Scotland, political nationalism has introduced the idea that only one side of the constitutional divide can be the authentic voice of ‘the people of Scotland’.

“That only it has the right to be heard. That other voices are, by their nature, illegitimate and phoney…if people feel bullied and hectored into supporting the SNP, I don’t blame them.”

Ms Davidson also predicted that the SNP’s time in power in Scotland was coming to an end, claiming that voters have “had enough” of the party after its decade at Holyrood and constant talk of independence.

“They include parents who have begun to notice that while these constitutional contortions have kept us all hugely occupied, their children’s education has been getting steadily worse and worse,” she said.

“That, perhaps, is the greatest rebuke against nationalism: it’s that it doesn’t actually make the trains run on time. Only good governance will do that.”

Responding to Ms Davidson’s comments, SNP candidate for Edinburgh North and Leith Deidre Brock said: “This is a lesson in doublethink from Ruth Davidson, whose own political message could not be more ‘tribal’ – it is Orwellian to lecture others on nationalism when she’s the one who drapes herself in a flag and drives around in a tank.

“Her claim to the moral high ground is totally undermined given that the SNP’s vision of an independent Scotland is inclusive, outward-looking and internationalist, while Ms Davidson supports a Brexit Britain turning its back on its nearest neighbours and trying to make enemies of our European allies.”