The Scottish Tories are in trouble. Lumbered with a Prime Minister they never wanted and with their influence amongst the UK party at a new all time low. Their laughable plans to have Ruth Davidson inaugurated as First Minister now seem in tatters as tensions rise across her party and across Parliaments. ‘Civil war’ is a term readily traded in Scottish politics but we might see a bona fide example of the genre as the Scottish Tories prepare to split in to rival camps.
At the heart of this is the new Prime MInister’s stricture that those who serve him sign up to a ‘do or die’ Brexit, including the now likely prospect of leaving with no deal. Already the career minded amongst the miserable troop of Scottish Conservative MPs have been careful not be be seen to be on the wrong side of this dictum. Only one of their number is apparently prepared to defy.
The replacement of David Mundell by a little known, old school landed gentry Tory, notable only for his hard views on Brexit has shocked the Scottish Tories to the core. Ruth Davidson did everything possible to retain her old friend in post and fully expected Boris to acquiesce to her demand. The fact that he didn’t care a hoot about her representations smacks of a former adversary enjoying his revenge served particularly well chilled. Boris cares so little about her difficulties that he even bypassed all the Scottish MPs and appointed an English MP in the Scotland Office confirming the utter humiliation of Ruth.
Next, there will be demands for ‘loyalty’ from the Scottish Conservatives to retain unity across the UK in the name of the ‘precious union’. The newly crowned ‘Minister of the Union’ will expect Ruth Davidson to perform another one of her now famous ‘flip-flops’ and sign the Boris ‘do or die’ Brexit pledge. If she does not it would be entirely reasonable for Boris to seek to secure a more loyal Scottish Lieutenant to do his Brexit bidding.
The Scottish Conservatives have only got themselves to blame for this embarrassing humbling. If they had made it clear to Boris that they would not countenance their authority being undermined then their bargaining power would at least have been worth a role of the dice. Threatening, then withdrawing, repeated resignation threats rendered them ridiculous and Boris rightly concluded that they did not have the bottle for the fight. Instead the only real defiance deployed was having Ruth back every defeated Boris opponent in the leadership contest until there was none left. How Boris must have been quaking in his boots at such ‘opposition’.
The one thing that Ruth did get right is her assessment that the Scots will never take to our new Prime Minister. Apparently solid opinion polling evidence told the Scottish Tories that the blustering, Eton public schoolboy buffoonery jarred with the Scottish public. Soft Tory voters impressed with an illusory Ruth ‘detoxification’ and a media manufactured leadership myth are appalled at his previous unacceptable racist and misogynistic comments. Tory remain voters are terrified of his plans for a no deal Brexit and his general pitch for the Farage vote. His ‘Cabinet of all the horrors’ also reminds Scots of the worst excesses of high Thatcherism. Already there is reasonable evidence to suggest that the Tories will be heading into electoral free fall with 53% of Scots saying they will now vote for independence with Boris as Prime Minister.
Knowing the electoral liability the Scots Tories were therefore right to throw every resource into the indelicately named ‘Operation Arse’ to stop him. The fact that they made such a total ‘arse’ of it just shows how ill prepared for anything approaching Government they really are. Pursuing this childishly monikered mission so ineptly has infuriated the Boris-ites and this Dad’s Army type defiance was never going to go unpunished.
Ruth therefore will have to sign up to the ‘buffoon Brexit’ or do what that great Conservative visionary, Murdo Fraser, suggested a long time ago during her leadership contest, and strike out on her own. Declaring Scots Tory ‘independence’ might now be the only option but the window for that is closing quickly. MP colleagues with careers to protect are quickly being enticed into project Boris and then there’s the question as to what on earth do Scottish Conservatives do in another snap General Election? There’s also the obvious little question of ‘if independence is good enough for the Scots Toris then why, etc…..’?
How Ruth must long for Yesterday when all she had to do was ride a buffalo or blow the bagpipes to secure screeds and screeds of fulsome praise and attention. The tired record of ‘Opposing a second referendum’ won’t work anymore and the policy cupboard has been bare for years.
Whatever there was in the way of a ‘Conservative revival’ is all but but sunk in blond ambition. For the Scottish Tories it wasn’t even fun while it lasted