Scottish Tories who want to split from UK party are just nationalists in denial – John McLellan

Readers of a certain age may remember an episode of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads in which the main characters Bob and Terry spend all day trying to avoid finding out the score of an England vs Bulgaria football match. It was something like that on Friday night because when arrangements were made for Ruth Davidson to address the Edinburgh Conservative Association’s patron’s dinner some time ago, it was not known proceedings would be getting underway just as Scotland kicked off against hosts Germany in the opening European Championship finals game.

That 1973 episode was titled “No Hiding Place”, and just as mobile phones made sure the diners were painfully aware of unfolding events in Munich, there is no hiding place for Conservatives facing the worst election defeat for over a century. With less than three weeks to go, analysis of the likely general election result is only a matter of the size of Labour’s majority, but in Scotland so many seats are so closely contested that the polls predict an outcome for the SNP of anything from a night as humiliating for nationalists as is all but inevitable for Conservatives in London, to a face-saving loss of less than a dozen seats.

And with John Swinney re-emphasising his commitment to independence, it’s not impossible that on the day there is enough anti-SNP tactical voting to deliver half a dozen Scottish Conservative MPs. But it could also be another 1997 wipe-out, or either David Mundell or John Lamont being a sole survivor in the Borders thanks to assiduous constituency work over many years.

Douglas Ross’s decision to stand for the Westminster parliament while remaining an MSP has dismayed many Conservative colleagues (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Stop Farage

We’ll know on Wednesday night if the Scotland football team continues its tradition of inglorious failure to make the knockout stage of major championships, but the drastic slump in Conservative fortunes has been accompanied by another tradition, the resurrection of the idea that the Scottish party should sever its ties with the UK party. As if Culture Secretary Angus Robertson in his Alpine breeches wasn’t off-putting enough, who really believes the Tartan Army will return from its Bavarian adventure all set to vote for a right-wing party if only there was a Scottish version of the Christian Social Union?

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Some fear the implications of Reform leader Nigel Farage being welcomed back to the party he left in 1992, and a so-called reverse takeover of the Tories by the smaller party, but there’s a long way to go before a cape is thrown over a puddle for his return. The first hurdle is for him to win Clacton in what is another tight contest – Conservative candidate Giles Watling might be the recipient of tactical “Stop Farage” votes the polls won’t necessarily pick up. And then whatever is left of the parliamentary Conservative party would have to agree to a deal.

Meanwhile, the handful of Scottish breakaway party resurrectionists have lost little time in dusting down the same arguments made in 2011 when Murdo Fraser MSP’s proposed schism was responsible his defeat in the leadership contest to succeed Annabel Goldie, ushering in Ruth Davidson’s ultimately successful tenure.

Polling suggests Reform UK could tip balance in at least 12 Scottish seats

Just like the SNP’s approach to government, there is apparently no problem facing the Scottish Conservatives which cannot be solved by separation, a view which relies on a nationalist premise that not enough Scottish people will vote for a right-of-centre party to be in with a chance of power if it is tied to a UK party. It’s therefore an argument put forward by right-wingers so uncomfortable with the Union that the only party with unionist in its title should voluntarily disband. These people are nationalists without the guts to admit it.

Dismay about Ross

In so many ways the Scottish Conservative party at Holyrood already is a different beast to the English party and, perhaps because of the devolved parliament’s focus on the public sector, it has been so drawn towards the centre-left consensus that, all too often, there appears to be little between the Scottish Conservatives and the rest except the name.

Association with a UK party has not prevented the revival of Scottish Labour, so why should Scottish Conservatism be doomed, or incapable of mounting a credible challenge to be a party of government, just because of its links to London?

In fact, there was a chance the Scottish Conservatives could buck the national trend until Douglas Ross’s grab of the Aberdeenshire North and Moray East candidacy the moment the party management board decided the still-stricken David Duguid was not fit enough to stand. If Mr Ross doesn’t win the seat and remains a backbench MSP, he might as well set up his own party, judging by the dismay amongst colleagues and senior party figures who a week on still cannot fathom out why he couldn’t see the damage he was likely to cause.

Fighting on in the jungle

Whatever happens on July 4, an avowedly pan-Great Britain party is not about to uncouple its Scottish wing, any more than Labour or the Lib Dems, and especially not if the vote in key seats holds up. And talk of the “London establishment” already smoothing the passage of Russell Findlay MSP to become the “continuity” replacement leader is, politely, disruptive, fanciful speculation and he is only one of several possible candidates whose priority would not be division.

Those Scottish Conservatives most unhappy with the leftward drift have left for Reform and, with one in six Conservative voters in Scotland now apparently considering a vote for Nigel Farage’s barmy army, it’s not as if some disaffected supporters are not looking for a new vehicle for their views. But they are the last people likely to back an avowedly anti-Union and inevitably soft-right party, even if it does espouse some pro-market views.

The reality is those still arguing for a split are fighting an old battle like Japanese soldiers abandoned in the Philippines jungle. The answer is straightforward – if they really believe the answer is a new right-of-centre party then go ahead and set one up.