Are the desperate and divisive Tories secretly trying to break up the UK?

During the fraught final fortnight of the Scottish independence referendum campaign, David Cameron pleaded for voters to stay and insisted that the break-up of the Union would “break my heart”.

He also opined that he felt “a thousand times more strongly” about keeping Scotland in the UK than staying in the EU, even though Scots made it clear that they want to separate if we exiled ourselves from Europe.

Yet there is little else he has done either before or since that suggests that he is thoroughly determined to stop what would be a deeply damaging fragmentation of Britain that I doubt would stop with just Scotland and would almost certainly leave an English nation that would be more bitterly divided than ever.

Indeed, he seems to have gone out of his way to inflame tensions and foster an even greater desire for Scottish independence.

It makes me wonder if the Prime Minister and other senior members of the Conservative and Unionist Party (to give it its official name) secretly want to break up the UK.

So let’s look at the evidence.

First of all, in agreeing to a referendum in 2012, Mr Cameron allowed the Scottish National Party to set the timing, which allowed the vote to take place during a frenzy of patriotism just eight months before a general election.

The only caveat he insisted on was that a third (and wildly popular) option of enhanced devolution was not put on the ballot paper.

I believe that Mr Cameron gambled that No voters would narrowly win, but that it would cement support for the SNP and scupper Labour north of the border.

I’m sure this deeply tribal Prime Minister did not want to be remembered as the man who broke up Britain, but he was more than happy to put Scotland on the path to independence so that, should that happen in the future, it would seem inevitable.

The Tories, whose support base is literally dying, are determined to claw back some strength - and getting rid of 59 constituencies where only one is represented by a Conservative would undoubtedly help them.

Mr Cameron and his City backers, whom he was caught gleefully promising “permanent” austerity to in a private speech at the 2013 Lord Mayor’s banquet, no doubt see the loss of a deeply resistant corner of the UK as a price worth paying.

And so, only hours after a fractious referendum had delivered a No vote, the Prime Minister declined to take the statesmanlike opportunity to soothe wounds and welcome Scotland back as full and equal participants in the United Kingdom.

Instead, as he took to the steps of Downing Street at 7am, he got out his dog whistle again – the same one he blew on immigration that allowed UKIP to flourish – and reassured the same English nationalists who he had unwittingly allowed to flock to Nigel Farage’s party that only English votes would pass English laws.

Since then Mr Cameron has, on an almost daily basis, helped to further alienate Scots and boost support for the SNP and independence.

His faltering election strategy now depends on attempting to woo UKIP supporters by warning them about the Scots in the same way as right-wing Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu scared voters by saying Arabs were turning out “in droves”.

Already, a host of senior Scottish Tories, notably former Scottish Secretary Lord Forsyth and Sir Malcolm Rifkind, have warned the Prime Minister that he is playing a dangerous game.

It is deeply hypocritical and wrong to say that Scotland is a treasured part of the Union and then say that their elected representatives deserve no say in the way it is governed.

I am opposed to nationalism in all forms and I hope Labour can limit the SNP surge, yet I would never want to stand in the way of democracy in action.

There is still an opportunity here to maintain the Union and escape years of division and chaos if Scottish MPs are encouraged to play a constructive role and the Tories do not go down their planned path of calling nationalist support for a possible minority Labour government “illegitimate” and, in doing so, foster further division.

Their argument ignores the fact that governments were frequently dependent on Irish nationalist support in the years leading up to the First World War and that Labour administrations have regularly relied on the Irish nationalist SDLP, even though that party also wants to break up the UK by uniting Ireland.

Suggestions that Alex Salmond would hold Ed Miliband to ransom are deeply exaggerated.

If the SNP were – like the Liberal Democrats or Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party – willing to support the Tories, then they could have great leverage, but they have ruled this out under any circumstances.

As for fearmongers’ claims that the SNP are “hard-left”, there is barely a cigarette paper’s difference between it and Labour.

The SNP’s claims to being anti-austerity compared to Labour’s “austerity light” are more down to the way Mr Miliband has chosen to present his party as “responsible” to appease English swing-voters, since the Institute of Fiscal Studies has already pointed out that their plans mean they could avoid cuts and still balance the books.

The days of two-party politics may be ending, but there are still two fundamental choices on offer at this election.

The Conservatives with their rebellious right-wing backbenchers and their spiritual allies in UKIP offer the public more painfully deep cuts, an increasingly cruel society where the poorest and never the richest are supposed to pay for austerity.

They also risk, with an inevitably bungled EU referendum and divisive rhetoric, breaking up the UK and fostering deep unrest in those places that remain in the Union.

And it will be the Tories’ crazed backbenchers, deluded UKIP MPs and those protestant fundamentalists of the DUP who are more likely to hold us to ransom and wreck those things we truly cherish about Britain, such as the NHS.

I dare say, judging by comments my previous blog posts have received, a fair few of you reading this will think this nightmare vision sounds simply superb.

But, if you don’t want to see this chaos and have a sense of decency and don’t want to live in a country where a million people already face the indignity of relying on charity to feed themselves while the rich are given tax cuts and often excused from paying their dues, you should do all you can to stop this happening.

The only real alternative is a government led by Labour, who will spend at least £50billion more than the Tories, clamp down on zero-hours contracts that threaten everyone’s job security, raise the minimum wage (which will boost higher salaries too), end the unfair non-dom tax status, ditch the vindictive bedroom tax, abolish the House of Lords, introduce mansion and bankers’ bonus taxes, and raise the top rate to 50%.

On top of this, they are genuinely committed to saving the Union and are the only major party capable of rebuilding trust with Scotland in order to prevent a damaging break-up.

And, if this isn’t enough for you, no progressive change at all will be possible and we will take a massive lurch to the right if David Cameron gets back in No 10.

The stakes at this election could not be higher.