IN AN attempt to stamp his authority on the party and inspire Scottish Tories, the Conservative Party leader, Mr William Hague, appealed to his colleagues yesterday to stop behaving like a "sixth form debating society" and insisted there should be "no no go areas" for the Tories, despite the loss of all their seats in Scotland in the British general election.
Addressing the Scottish Conservatives' party conference in Perth, Mr Hague showed his Eurosceptic credentials by calling for a referendum on the deal that the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, agreed at the EU summit in Amsterdam.
"The Eurocrats must have though Father Christmas was in town. Amsterdam was a bad treaty, bad for Europe and bad for Britain, and Tony Blair signed up to it lock, stock and barrel," he said.
However, not surprisingly, Mr Hague's speech was dominated by his determination to unite the Tories, declaring that the fight back had now started and warning that party members could no longer be self indulgent, arguing among themselves.
"We were seen as divided, greedy, self absorbed. Whether we deserved it or not, we were seen as [remote from the people we were elected to serve. Over the last few years we lost our special relationship with the people of Britain. We forfeited their trust," he said.
After pledging that the party would be a "staunch defender" of the Union, Mr Hague called for the British government to publish its devolution proposals before a referendum was held.
Otherwise, the Tory leader said, it would be like buying a secondhand car from a man who won't let you look under the bonnet first."
Although Mr Hague pledged that the Tories would continue to oppose devolution, he acknowledged that if a Scottish parliament were created the need for Conservative representation would be stronger than ever".
Earlier, Scottish Tories echoed Mr Hague's views by ignoring calls to change or face extinction and voted by a large majority to campaign against the government's devolution proposals.
In an emotional speech, the former Scottish Secretary, Mr Michael Forsyth, who lost his seat in the election, predicted that the Tories would be relegated to a footnote in history" if they did not continue to fight against the government's dictatorial" plans.
"We Conservatives and Unionists have always stood for what we believed in. If in the wake of election defeat, we were now to stand supinely aside and nod through the most disastrous reversal of our constitutional stability since 1707, we would deserve to be relegated to a footnote in history," Mr Forsyth said.
"We will not stand by," he continued. "We will not see our country dismembered. We will fight for Scotland as we have always done."
"So don't mope on the sidelines working out how best to coexist with the Scottish Constitutional Convention's pygmy parliament that would diminish, impoverish and finally fragment our country: get out there and stop it," he urged.
However, Mr Ian Buchanan, one of two prodevolutionists, told local activists that the party had lost the election because they refused to listen to ordinary men and women". He warned that the Tories had to learn from their mistakes.
"Scotland wants a parliament whether people in this room like it or not, and people in this room who think otherwise are frankly deluding themselves. I think a parliament is going to happen. Let's try and grasp that fact and work constructively towards that," he pleaded.
The Scottish party chairwoman, Mrs Annabel Goldie, predicted that the Tories faced "extinction" if they did not change as they now had no MPs or MEPs, nor did they control any councils in Scotland.
"The process of change could require a harsh, and perhaps even brutal, assessment of ourselves," Mrs Goldie added.