That really was an awful speech. Scotland is a separate country with a separate heritage and social values, which are more inclusive and left wing than further south. Scotland is the home of the original Labour party, whose first MP was Scottish. In the last hundred years five prime ministers have been of Scottish origin. Six if you include Cameron. Scotland has always played an important role in UK politics, but the Tory party has never really been a driving force in Scotland. Its high water mark was in 1955, when 36 MPs and 50% of the votes. Over the following years the numbers shrank until a wipeout in 1997. Since then just one seat. One of the drivers of the independence argument was the fact that Scots were governed by a party for which almost nobody any longer voted.
This nasty rhetoric about ‘clear and present danger’ is ludicrous and will put off many inclusive Conservatives who can think for themselves. Moreover the biggest threat to the Union comes from a majority in England voting to leave the EU. If that happened Scotland for sure would vote to leave the UK and apply to join the EU. What has Sir John Major to say about that?