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Henry Christian is supermarket cleaner who spent three years selling the Big Issue in the mid 90s.  He first joined the Conservative Party in 1987 and is author of the blog “Random Shit”.  You can follow him on Twitter at @HarryHatless

It may come as a surprise to many people, but not to most Scots, that many of the symbols of the United Kingdom are seen in Scotland as symbols of England.  Now that may seem like an abstract concept, but perhaps a couple of examples will help to demonstrate what I mean.

The Union Flag is clearly the flag of the United Kingdom and if you ask any Scot (Or almost any Scot.  Even here we have the occasional numpty) they will be able to tell you it is the British flag; and that is the way it should be.  But the problem is that many of us do not see it as the flag of our country, instead we see it as an English flag.  If you see a Union Flag at an international football or rugby game then you are usually correct to assume that it is England fans waving it.  You never see a Union flag at a Scotland game.  Indeed, it would be a very brave man who attempted to wave one in a stand populated by Scotland fans.

“God Save The Queen” is another example.  It’s probably fair to say that most Scots only know two lines of that song, and one of those lines is, “Rebellious Scots to crush.”  Most of us Scots feel very little affinity towards that anthem.  It would probably be easier to find a Scotsman who knew all the words to the USA’s national anthem or the Irish national anthem than to find one who knew every line of “God Save The Queen.”

Even the monarchy itself has this problem.  References in the media to the “Queen of England”, the reigning monarch’s insistence on the use of the incorrect reginal numbers as if Scotland doesn’t matter, and a variety of other minor reasons have led to a situation where she is seen as more of an English monarch than a British monarch.

For many Scots, probably most Scots, when you show us a British flag we see an English flag.  When you play us the British national anthem we hear the English national anthem.  When the Queen of Great Britain and the Commonwealth is on our television screens we are watching the Queen of England, and all of this is a problem for today’s Scottish Conservatives.  When we ask people to vote for us they feel that we are asking them to vote for an English party – and what patriotic Scot would want to do that?  Now I know this is a problem for all the UK parties.  The SNP haven’t gained a majority in the Scottish parliament just by winning votes from us, but it is us who are feeling the pain the most.  We have no power, no influence and almost no representation.  Even within the wider UK Conservative Party we are seen as an embarrassment.

Eventually the Labour and Lib-Dem parties will have to come up with their own solutions to this problem, but for us the matter needs dealt with urgently.  Fortunately we have a solution.  It’s an old idea that’s been kicking around for a few years now, but I believe that it is an idea whose time has come.  So when Murdo Fraser has the courage to say that we should break from the UK party we should not only listen to him but vote for him to be our new leader.  Scotland needs a conservative party that is quite clearly a Scottish party and Scottish Conservatives need a party that is capable of winning votes.  We can no longer afford to be seen as a regional branch of an English party and only a separation from the UK party can stop that.