Just so we know where I'm coming from: I live in Scotland, I'm a member of the Scottish Green Party and I live in hope of Scottish independence.
But until Scotland has a 'conscious uncoupling' from the UK, I have an interest in what is happening in your party.
It would be an understatement to say I'm shocked at what has gone on in the past few days. We have discovered a Conservative Party we never really admitted to ourselves could exist: a party of naked ambition, in which public schoolboys play games of one-upmanship among themselves, ignoring the interests of the UK, apparently not too bothered when the pound sterling goes into a nose-dive, the FTSE100 loses billions, racist attacks rise by 50% and even the President of the USA calls for calm. A party without a plan for the future.
You might like to remind yourselves, as you choose your new leader, that certain of the candidates for leadership got us into this mess in the first place. Do you really want them to take the UK forward?
I also want to remind you, as you choose your new leader, that the rest of us, who didn't vote for the Conservatives, are stuck with your party in Westminster until 2020; that we live in austerity-land and have done since 2008, watching public services being cut to bits; and that we might like to have someone in charge who has a fresh view of where we go from here. But you should also know that we will be able to dump your party in 2020.
If you have time, you might spare a thought for the countries and regions of the UK which have depended a lot on the EU to shore up their infrastructure, their farming sector and their declining industrial areas, so shamefully neglected by successive Westminster governments since the time of Margaret Thatcher.
Most of all, you might want to remind yourselves that, whatever the problems of the Labour Party, the voters are clearly on the move, opposing the madness that was acted out on June 23. It takes a lot to get the voters of the UK to take to the streets, but the EU referendum has done that.
Proceed with caution.
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