“EVERY vote cast in May is a vote against indyref2”, ran the Scottish Conservatives’ message at the launch of their campaign this week. These are likely to be the liveliest and hardest-fought council election for many years, and turnout should be up. However, it looks like having very little to do with local issues and everything to do with Brexit and the constitution – anything but council affairs. Ruth Davidson’s outing as a supporter of the infamous “rape clause” has dominated the first week, as has the suggestion by SNP Edinburgh group leader Frank Ross that the Unionist parties aren’t truly Scottish.

The Liberal Democrats are the party of community politics, par excellence, but even their manifesto, launched yesterday, notes that these local elections will be “dominated as never before by national issues”. Number one is the threat as they see it of an unwanted second independence referendum. But close behind is Brexit, and the repeat referendum they do want: on Europe. The LibDems also have policies relevant to each local authority, but they’re very much down the page.

Of course, there is no law that local elections have to be about local issues. We’re living in a period of unprecedented political and constitutional turmoil. Politics has been dominated by issues like security for non-EU citizens and whether the UK is going to continue to co-operate with the EU on terrorism. The uncertainty about Scotland’s future in the single market is bound to weigh heavily on voters’ minds. As will the prospect of another independence referendum.

Nicola Sturgeon upped the ante on the eve of these elections. Her letter requesting a Section 30 Order following Holyrood’s vote for an independence referendum was penned less than a fortnight ago. She knew perfectly well that this issue would dominate the local ballot, and even turn it into something of a premature referendum on independence. And despite their opposition to independence, that’s what the Scottish Tories are hoping too.

Indeed, Theresa May actually called on Scottish voters to use the local elections to “send a clear message” to the Scottish Government that they don’t want another independence referendum. Mind you, that only confirms that in politics you should be careful what you wish for. The Scottish National Party is echoing Wendy Alexander in 2008 and saying: bring it on. If May 4 is a surrogate referendum, then the Nationalists are likely to win it handsomely.

The SNP continues to dominate Scottish politics at all levels: in Westminster, where it won 56 out of 59 MPs in 2015; and in Holyrood, where last year it won more seats than all the Unionist parties – Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat – combined. Now Nicola Sturgeon is on course to make a clean sweep by turning many councils yellow.

Back in 2012, Labour and the SNP were still neck and neck. The SNP won a few more votes, but Labour held sway in more councils, and crucially in Glasgow, where the SNP was trounced. This time, according to Professor John Curtice, Labour is polling 12 points behind the SNP in local by-elections. This means not only Glasgow, but Labour heartlands like North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire should fall. The SNP could end up in overall control of 12 councils, against only one currently.

That would see the final eclipse of Labour’s 50-year-long dominance of Scottish politics. A moment for reflection, at least. It’s even possible that the Tories could out-poll Labour in these elections, which will fuel further talk of a Scottish Conservative revival. Indeed, on almost any projection, Ms Davidson is likely to be the story of the night. But they shouldn’t get too carried away.

Since last year’s Scottish Parliament elections a myth has grown that the Scottish Conservatives are on the march to electability. Columnists have been speculating that the Scottish Tories, who are now the second largest party in Holyrood, could actually become a governing party in the 2020s. This is fanciful. Labour’s precipitous fall in support has flattered the Tories by comparison. Ms Davidson’s party still has fewer than half the Holyrood seats of Nicola Sturgeon’s.

Ms Davidson’s personal popularity has been exaggerated too, as this week’s Lord Ashcroft polls confirmed. She is certainly more popular than Tory leaders of the recent past. In some polls Scottish voters have said she’s doing a better job at leadership even than Ms Sturgeon. But that needn’t mean people are planning to vote Tory, or that the brand has been rehabilitated – just that she’s making the very best of a bad job.

The Tories are the eternal political optimists, however, and they see no reason why they shouldn’t inherit the Unionist vote from the 2014 referendum. The Tory calculation is simple: 55 per cent said No to independence. Conservatives have continued unequivocally to say No to independence, while Labour has vacillated and then collapsed. Therefore, shouldn’t those two million-odd votes go to the Tories as the only credible Unionist party?

But this is a false calculus, because the 2014 referendum wasn’t all it appeared. As we know, the losers won it all. The SNP’s meteoric rise dates from that very referendum defeat, after which its membership quintupled and it won its “tsunami” General Election victory of 2015, one of the biggest landslides in history. Momentum is still with it.

The Conservatives will do well on May 4, and will probably supplant Labour in terms of the overall council vote, but Ms Davidson has too much baggage to make a historic breakthrough. When it comes down to it, the SNP’s Frank Ross is right – sort of. The Scottish Tories are umbilically linked to the UK Party. Even staunch opponents of the European Union, and there are plenty in Scotland, are unimpressed with the conduct of Brexit.

For many Scots, this is the most unattractive Tory government in Westminster since the days of Margaret Thatcher. Recent talk of sending a task force to Gibraltar only evoked memories of the Falklands under her watch. The right-wing ministers in charge, including Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox, are profoundly unpopular in Scotland. However much she tries, Ruth Davidson cannot avoid being an accessory to Brexit, even though she voted Remain. Nor can she disown UK Conservative policies as they affect Scotland, such as the bedroom tax and the rape clause. The SNP isn't worrying about a May surprise.