Why the Scottish nationalists cannot call the shots

Britain is set to wake up on a May 8 as a helpless hostage in the custody of a few dozen Scottish Nationalists. So say David Cameron's Conservatives. Forget the economy, the health service and Europe. Unless voters come to their senses, the prime minister says, the nation will be ruled by a minority Labour government in thrall to the separatists of the Scottish National party. This is fantasy politics. It is also a dangerous game.

Even by the standards of election campaigns the prime minister's language has turned distinctly lurid. A Labour administration led by Ed Miliband that relied on the tacit backing of the Nationalists would be "match made in hell". The prospect was "chilling". John Major, a former Tory prime minister, has joined the fray. A minority Labour government would be "blackmailed" by the SNP. It would be a recipe for mayhem, "a real and present danger to our country".

The campaign tactics here are clear enough. The Tories, still stuck in the opinion polls, want to frighten English voters by casting Mr Miliband as a hostage of Nicola Sturgeon's SNP. The charge does not stand scrutiny. Worse, it plays directly into the hands of the Nationalists. The Conservative and Unionist party, as the Tories used to call themselves, is sounding very much like an English nationalist party as careless of the union as the SNP is determined to dismantle it.

The point has been made well by the Tory peer Lord Forsyth. A former Scottish secretary in, yes, Mr Major's government, Lord Forsyth said Mr Cameron had shattered the pro-union alliance among the UK-wide parties. Speaking to The Guardian, he said his own party was putting electoral tactics above a historic commitment to the defence of the UK union. Mr Cameron's implicit support for the advance of the SNP into Labour's Scottish strongholds threatened "the integrity of the UK". Lord Forsyth pointed out that the Tories had themselves propped up a minority SNP government in the Scottish parliament.

Cynical electoral tactics aside - and this week's onslaught is beginning to smack of desperation on the Tory side - the charge that the SNP would call the shots after an inconclusive election simply does not fit the political facts. If the party won every seat in Scotland it would have 59 seats in a parliament of 650. On present polling, Labour and the Conservatives can expect to win upwards of 260.

The SNP would have leverage over a minority government only to the extent it could find common cause with the main opposition party. Put another way, it could "blackmail" Mr Miliband over policy towards, say, the future of Britain's nuclear deterrent only with the collusion of a Conservative opposition. Likewise, it would need Tory backing to dictate the terms of further Scottish devolution.

Ms Sturgeon's party is the biggest winner from the scaremongering. Messrs Cameron and Major may think they can pick up a few more votes in England, but by seeking to delegitimise the SNP they are reinforcing the Scottish Nationalist narrative of victimhood - that the English will always seek to do it down. A party fit to govern Scotland, the Tories are saying, cannot have any say in the governance of the UK. In those circumstances, what point the union?

There is nothing to welcome in the SNP's advance in Scotland. Ms Sturgeon's demands for home rule - combining fiscal autonomy with a blank cheque from the Westminster government - belong to the realm of the absurd. The answer from unionist parties should be a simple "No". Instead Mr Cameron, and now Mr Major, have decided to put party before country and join with the SNP in playing the nationalist game. This can only be bad for the future of the union.

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