Why the day has come for Scottish Tories to cut all ties with UK party - Euan McColm

When, during the Scottish Conservatives’ leadership election of 2011, candidate Murdo Fraser pledged to abolish the party and create a new centre-right organisation, some suggested he’d completely lost his mind.

Former Scottish Secretary Michael Forsyth dismissed the idea as “ludicrous” while Scottish MP David Mundell said that, should Fraser win and implement his plan, he would remain a Conservative and continue to stand for election under the party’s banner.

Ruth Davidson went on to succeed Annabel Goldie as Scottish Tory leader and Fraser’s wheeze was consigned to the bin.

There were obvious reasons for the failure of Fraser’s plan. For one thing, then Prime Minister David Cameron was considered reasonably moderate so the idea that the UK and Scottish Conservative Parties were - or should be - fundamentally different didn’t have much purchase. Perhaps more importantly to the PM, the SNP’s landslide victory in the 2011 Holyrood election meant an independence referendum was on the cards and the last thing the Unionist side needed was one of the major players declaring its own form of independence. Fraser’s plan, said Tory MSPs opposed to it, was reckless.

Back in 2011, the arguments against Fraser’s proposal were compelling. In recent years, however, the idea that the Scottish Tories should break ties with the party south of the border has begun to look like its time may have come.

Since the EU referendum of 2016, successive Scottish Tory leaders - Ruth Davidson, Jackson Carlaw, and Douglas Ross - have been hobbled by the increasingly intolerable behaviour of colleagues at Westminster. Davidson was appalled when Boris Johnson became Prime Minister and his actions in office were a factor in her decision to step down.

More recently, Ross has been relentlessly - and justifiably - tormented by opponents at Holyrood over the chaos of the Liz Truss premiership and the countless failings of Rishi Sunak.

Ross’s decision to join Davidson in the bugger-this-for-a-lark club of Scottish Tory leaders and resign comes at a hugely difficult time for his party.

The threat of a second independence referendum is gone, taking with it the power of the Scottish Tory message that only they could be trusted to defend the Union.

The Scottish Tories face slipping back into third place at the 2026 Holyrood election. And after that? There’s every chance they’ll resume the steady decline of their pre-independence referendum days.

Nobody has, yet, declared their candidacy to replace Douglas Ross. Speculation swirls around deputy leader Meghan Gallacher, justice spokesman Russell Findlay, and even Murdo Fraser, but we're unlikely to get confirmation until after the general election.

I wonder whether the next leader really wants to remain part of a UK Tory party almost certain to lurch further right in the aftermath of a general election defeat. It doesn’t sound like fun to me.

A moderate, centre right Scottish Tory leader should feel free to speak truths - Brexit is bad for business, for example - widely acknowledged by Scottish voters. Likewise, he or she should be confident enough to push for the expansion of devolution where change might benefit the economy.

And that leader should be able to condemn, unequivocally, the worst excesses of the English Tory right.

Murdo Fraser’s plan doesn’t look quite so batty, now.