Scots won’t help Johnson much
ROCKY: CONSERVATIVES AT RISK OF LOSING SEATS
Scottish results may be difference between Johnson majority and hung parliament.
Surprise victories in Scotland helped save the Conservative Party in the 2017 election, but Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in danger of losing those gains next week, forcing him to look elsewhere for a parliamentary majority.
“This time is going to be very tight,” Stephen Kerr, the Conservative MP for the Stirling constituency, in central Scotland, said.
The Tories snatched the seat from the Scottish National Party in 2017, with a majority of just 148.
Kerr now runs the risk of losing it in the December 12 vote, like many of the 12 other Scottish Conservatives who made spectacular gains two years ago, largely due to the party’s then leader in Scotland, Ruth Davidson. “With Davidson, we went from one MP to 13 MPs,” said Kerr.
“The Tory revival in Scotland in 2017 ... saved Theresa May’s skin,” said website Politico’s Charlie Cooper, allowing the then-prime minister to cling to power, despite losing her majority in parliament. Two years on, the Conservatives’ success could disappear into the mist. The Scottish results “could be the difference between a Johnson majority and a hung parliament”, added Cooper.
Johnson will no longer be able to count on Davidson’s talents as she resigned in August. She opposed Brexit, which is unpopular in Scotland despite Johnson’s efforts to convince the Scots it will benefit them.
One of the prime minister’s first campaign events was a visit to a whisky distillery in Moray, where he promised that after Brexit, the tariffs on whisky and other European products by the US would no “longer be applied to this country”.
But on the streets of Stirling voters, do not appear to have warmed to Johnson and the Tories are also under threat in the fishing communities of northeast Scotland.
Michael Keating, at the University of Aberdeen, said: “They have little to gain from Brexit because they sell 85% of their catch to the EU.”
It was “difficult to see where” Johnson could compensate for these losses, other than in the “post-industrial constituencies” of northern England. These traditional bastions of the main opposition Labour party voted for Brexit. The December 12 poll will test historical allegiances. – AFP