The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Tories in UK party split if Boris becomes leader
Ruth Davidson would declare independence Scottish party leader threatens to ‘do a Murdo’ Breaking away from UK party seen as a viable option
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson will declare independence from her UK party if Boris Johnson becomes its leader, The Courier can reveal.
The prospect of Mr Johnson replacing David Cameron as Prime Minister after Thursday’s EU referendum is causing such concern in the Scottish top team that breaking away is seen as a viable option.
The move would mirror the tactic of Perthshire-based MSP Murdo Fraser in a previous leadership campaign.
The Mid Scotland and Fife MSP was defeated in the 2011 contest to take charge of the party after proposing the Scottish Conservatives must be replaced with a new right-wing group.
A source close to Ms Davidson said: “If Boris becomes leader we’ll do a Murdo. We’ll have to break off.”
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson will declare independence from her UK party if Boris Johnson becomes its leader, The Courier can reveal.
David Cameron has already said he will not fight a third election as Tory leader, but some at Westminster are predicting a coup in the aftermath of Thursday’s EU referendum, particularly if there is a Leave vote.
The prospect of Mr Johnson replacing him as Prime Minister is causing such concern in the Scottish top team that going solo, in a move which would mirror Murdo Fraser’s leadership campaign tactic, is seen as a viable option.
The Mid Scotland and Fife MSP was defeated in the 2011 contest to take charge of the party after proposing the Scottish Conservatives must be replaced with a new right-wing group.
Ms Davidson, who saw off Mr Fraser’s challenge five years ago and guided the Tories to second place in May’s Holyrood election, is now considering such radical action ahead of her televised showdown on the EU referendum with the former London Mayor tonight.
A source close to Ms Davidson said: “If Boris becomes leader, we’ll do a Murdo. We’ll have to break off.”
Supporters of Mr Fraser’s plan last night argued that forming a new party would be the “next logical step” for her, whether Mr Johnson entering Downing Street or another factor was the catalyst.
Party insiders said she had distanced the Scottish party from the UK Tories in several key policy areas and they campaigned in the recent Holyrood election under the banner “Ruth Davidson for a strong opposition” rather than the Conservative name.
There is no love lost between Ms Davidson and Mr Johnson, which is likely to make for a lively event at Wembley for those watching.
She savaged her opponent in an article for a tabloid newspaper, arguing a Leave vote would be “a conscious decision to make Britain poorer” which “would hurt the poorest the most”.
She added: “Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage would be OK; the wealthy are always able to fall back on their pension pots and savings.
“It would be ordinary workers who would suffer; the easyJet air hostess who could lose her job because, after Brexit, the airline would be priced out from flying within Europe; the dad on the factory floor at one of our many car-makers whose job disappears because Europe has slapped a new tariff on British-made motors; the single mum on a zero-hours contract whose job is extinguished to cut costs.”
She also compared Mr Johnson and Ukip leader Mr Farage’s Leave strategy to the “brazen chauvinistic style of (Alex) Salmond”.
Mr Johnson will lead a three-person team arguing for Brexit alongside Labour MP Gisela Stuart and Tory energy minister Andrea Leadsom.
The event, on BBC One at 8pm, will pit them against Ms Davidson, Sadiq Khan, the Labour London Mayor, and Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress.
Whatever the result of the EU referendum, anyone who thinks the bitter divisions of recent months will quickly heal is deluded. In truth, the increasingly rancorous atmosphere throughout this debate has been fostered for decades and has now, naturally, bubbled to the surface.
This is particularly so within the Conservative Party, where the issue of European membership has long been a boil often lanced but never truly healed.
The split between the party’s Remain and Leave camps seems irredeemable and will seemingly straddle borders.
Ruth Davidson, the most successful leader of the Scottish party since Thatcherism made “Tory” a dirty word in Scotland, has made it clear she cannot work with Boris Johnson – the Prime Minister-elect if he is victorious at the end of the week.
It would be a further devastating blow for the Conservative Party if it were to suffer a split just when it was regaining ground in its former Scottish heartlands.
Some of the most loyal party members would be forced to choose between a man whose motivation throughout the referendum campaign has been questionable and the rising star of the Tory ranks who has been spoken of as a future Westminster leader.
In a post-Brexit landscape, the victors would have hoped to rely on the likes of Ms Davidson to heal wounds, not open new ones.