The Farage factor could yet sink the Scots Tories - forever

The rain was biblical, but there will be no miracles here. It will not get better for Mr Sunak. In all likelihood, he already knows this. Entering the job 18 months ago, this highly intelligent man will have been aware that he was almost certainly destined to lose on account of the performance of his predecessors.

There was no electoral or strategic reason to call a summer election; indeed, by waiting until Autumn as most of his wisest aides had advised, he would have interest rate cuts, tax cuts and probably a flight or two to Rwanda to campaign on. Nonetheless, none of those would have been enough to make him win, and he knows that. The only logical conclusion about what happened on Wednesday is that Mr Sunak has had enough, and sees no reason to prolong the matter.

I wonder if, strangely, what happens in the six weeks after the July 4th election may be more interesting that what happens in the six weeks leading up to it. Westminster politics has been predictably cyclical for my entire lifetime. After a long period in office for one of the two main parties, they lose and go through a period of introspection and bad decisions.

They misdiagnose their problem and gravitate towards a solution which pleases their membership but which is the opposite of the choice voters would make. Michael Foot. Iain Duncan Smith. Ed Miliband. Sometimes, they move even further in the wrong direction and put themselves at risk not just of reversal, but of collapse - Jeremy Corbyn. Cyclically, they wake up, realise that their membership is a poor cross-section of society and choose someone who can actually win. Tony Blair. David Cameron. Keir Starmer.

Douglas Ross (Image: free)

This is, probably, what will happen to the Conservatives for the duration of the next Parliamentary term, until 2028 or 2029 when Sir Keir wins a second term. His opponent will most likely represent the populist right - think Suella Braverman. And then, after that fails and just as Sir Keir is beginning to lose his shine, a centrist will take over - think Clare Coutinho or Penny Mordaunt.

But the cycle is not copper bottomed. Other countries around the world have broken the cycle. In France, only a decade ago, the poles of the Socialists and the UMP traded office; now President Emmanuel Macron’s breakaway party is one of several parties which comprise most of the seats in the National Assembly, most of which are single-digits in age.

In Canada, the Conservative Party of Stephen Harper is not to be confused with the Progressive Conservative Party of Brian Mulroney. One is now defunct and was replaced by the other.

My point is that change happens. So what could change in Britain?

The most intriguing answer to that question involves Nigel Farage and the Reform UK political party. Mr Farage is a fascinating and impactful political figure - one of the five most impactful British politicians of my lifetime, along with Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Martin McGuinness and Alex Salmond.

If there had been no Nigel Farage, there would have been no commitment in David Cameron’s manifesto for a referendum on EU membership. And if there had been no Nigel Farage, there would have been a Remain victory in that referendum. Not bad for a guy who’s never won an election.

However it is the future of Mr Farage, rather than his past, which is of interest now. What separates Mr Farage from the burgeoning populist right of the Conservative Party? Not terribly much, which explains why almost one-in-four of the voters who crossed the Conservative box in 2019 are now telling pollsters that they will vote for Reform UK.

In our first past the post system, Reform UK’s support is unlikely to translate into seats. So what is Mr Farage’s move, here? We know he’s not standing for Reform UK; no wonder, since he knows he would lose again. But what about after the election, when the Conservatives members are searching for the solution to their problem and, as per the cycle, reach for the wrong one?

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You may, reader, think they could not possibly turn to Nigel Farage. But, ask yourself, did you think that Labour could not possibly turn to Jeremy Corbyn? Mr Farage joins the Conservative Party. A supportive MP in a safe seat stands aside. Mr Farage becomes a Tory MP. Then leader. Don’t bet on it; but don’t bet against it either.

Whither the Scottish Conservatives in all of this? Ironically, they and their leader Douglas Ross are likely to look rather good in six weeks. The six Westminster seats they hold today are likely to be held on July 4th; all are head-to-head battles against the SNP, and with the nationalists’ vote share plummeting at a similar rate to that of the Tories, it is likely that Mr Ross will be able to hail success in Scotland.

This endeavour has been inadvertently helped by Mr Sunak holding the election in the first week of the Scottish school holidays; Mark Diffley, of his eponymous pollster, reckons that Scotland’s one-in-five postal voters are disproportionately likely to be older, Conservative voters.

It will not be long, however, before the party’s 31 MSPs realise that, having polled 25 per cent in 2019 and lost perhaps 7-10 per cent on July 4th, their jobs are on the line in a 2026 election run partly under proportional representation.

They will be worried. And then the UK party will turn to an immigration-focused populist. And then they will be petrified.

Twenty years ago, precisely five people thought that the Scottish Conservative Party should withdraw from the UK Tory family and start a Scottish-only party of the centre right, in the belief that it was the only way to form a government in Scotland. By 2011, when Murdo Fraser campaigned on the platform, a large minority of the party supported it.

If the Conservatives turn to Mr Farage, or someone else like him, expect the trickle, which turned into a wave, to morph into a tsunami.

• Andy Maciver is Founding Director of Message Matters and Zero Matters and a former Tory  communications chief