Scottish Tories: A new captain is not enough. We need a new ship

The Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party keeps losing. We lost all our MPs in 1997. We lost vote share in 1999. We lost seats and vote-share in 2007, and then again in 2011. It wasn’t for lack of trying: our people worked hard and we had good, strong leaders in David McLetchie and Annabel Goldie.

As we stand now, we are more of a hindrance than a help to David Cameron in forming a UK Conservative Government.

Scotland is dominated by a sterile conflict between two centre-left parties – Labour and the SNP – and I firmly believe that Scotland needs a strong, progressive, centre-right party to challenge this consensus.

However, in its current form, our party – the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party – is not fulfilling that role and it will never be able to promote effectively the values we stand for – the values which Scotland needs.

Why? Because we haven't practised what we preach. We are a party which believes in devolving power to people. But we haven’t devolved power to ourselves.

We needed a distinctive Scottish identity in order to attract the votes of people who used to vote Conservative but who have left us, and of people who have never voted Conservative. But we didn’t have one.

I want us to start winning again.  But we can’t start winning unless we understand why we keep losing.  And the brutal, honest truth is that we keep losing because our party is not fit for purpose in its current form.

It’s time to start again. I will transform the party into a new party for Scotland. A new party, distinctly Scottish, standing up for Scottish interests.

A new party which supports the excellent work David Cameron’s Westminster government is doing and whose MPs support a Conservative prime minister, but which is not afraid to disagree with it if it’s in Scotland’s interests.  On fisheries, for example, or the future of our historic army regiments.

This is, in effect, going back to the situation that existed prior to 1965 when a distinct Scottish party sent many MPs to Westminster who took the Conservative whip.

The UK Conservative Party will benefit, since there will be more MPs from Scotland supporting a future Conservative Government.

Change is not an option, but a necessity – and I don’t mean superficial change. A new captain of the sinking ship is not going to be enough. We need a new ship.

Of course, a new party is not sufficient in itself, but it is the crucial first step in building a new centre-right movement in Scotland: to encourage those voters who have left us to come back, and to make voters who have never considered voting Conservative before think, “Maybe next time.”

Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It’s time to learn the lesson. It’s time to change. It’s time for a new party for Scotland.