New Scottish Tory leader’s job is to keep the corpse warm

Healthy democracies need at least two strong ones. The best performing democracies have a strong party sitting broadly in a centre-left position, believing in strong and interventionist government, and another sitting in a broadly centre-right position believing in a more liberal approach with a weaker centre. Not much separates these parties on the basics of capitalism and freedom, and they trade power on a regular basis.

READ MORE BY ANDY MACIVER

If you’re going down, go down swinging  

Viva Scotland, Sir Keir

Scotland is different, alas, and not in a good way. Our centre-right party, the Conservatives, have never played a role in the Scottish Government. Many of a leftist disposition will say "and Amen to that". Fine. But in the national interest, we suffer from the impotence of the centre-right. There is no check on power. And there is most certainly no power.

In this month’s General Election, hidden behind the five seats won by the Conservative party was a near-death experience. Picture 100 adults in Scotland; only seven of them chose to vote for the party of the centre-right. Seven. If the Scottish Conservative Party was an animal, the International Union for Conservation of Nature would list it as Critically Endangered, at risk of becoming Extinct In The Wild.

This is sad for those in the party, concerning for those on the centre-right, and debilitating for a country which is in need of new ideas. Yet, perhaps counterintuitively, it is also why I have reached the conclusion that the looming leadership election will not lead to the death of the Scottish Tory party and its replacement with a new one - the topic which has dominated the last fortnight of news coverage.

I have not reached this conclusion out of intimidation. I know many MSPs considering a leadership bid have been heavily leaned on to reconsider in the interests of their career; one joked to me that he thought if he announced his candidacy he might wake up with a horse's head in his bed! But these are the actions of a cabal at the top of the party hierarchy, who have a keen instinct for self-preservation and have chosen the candidate they believe will fly their flag, and my fear of them only marginally eclipses my respect for them.

And I have not reached this conclusion because I no longer believe the centre-right needs a new vehicle if it wants to embark on a journey to government. As sure as I am that the sun will rise tomorrow morning, the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party will never play a role in the Scottish Government.

When I started working for David McLetchie in 2002, the Tories had a vote share in the teens, trailing a distant third behind two parties of the centre-left. When I helped Murdo Fraser run his leadership campaign in 2011, the Tories had a vote share in the teens, trailing a distant third behind two parties of the centre-left. And today, after the 2024 General Election, the Tories have a vote share in the teens, trailing a distant third behind two parties of the centre-left.

Believing this can be different for a party so tied, at least in the eyes of the voters, to an England-first Conservative party, is mythical, and generally the preserve of the "transactional Tories" whose political life does not precede the independence referendum. They believe the fulcrum for the party’s electability is the leader rather than the circumstances. But Baroness Davidson, leader since 2011, did not poll beyond the teens for over four years, until the 2015 SNP landslide put the prospect of a second referendum on the table, and the Union-neutral Jeremy Corbyn simultaneously took control of Labour. Similarly, the dismissed Jackson Carlaw oversaw a 25 per cent vote share in the 2019 General Election, and the maligned Douglas Ross held all 31 seats in the 2021 Scottish Parliament election.

Why? Because independence was on the table in 2019 and 2021, just as it had been in 2016 and 2017. When independence is on the table, the unionists are on the table, no matter the leader. When it falls off the table, like it did three weeks ago, so do the Conservatives, no matter the leader.

Jackson Carlaw oversaw a 25 per cent vote share in the 2019 General Election (Image: Gordon Terris)

With all candidates for the party’s leadership accepting that it needs to move beyond the unionist versus nationalist dichotomy, the decade-long strategy is dead, and the party is now reliant not on Unionism, but on Conservatism.

With a core vote in the teens, there is far less than half the support required to win an election, and with enemies all around them at Holyrood, only those on a super-cocktail of hallucinogenic drugs believe that 65 MSPs could be persuaded to vote for a Tory leader as First Minister.

So, no, there has been no Damascene conversion on my part.

Instead, my view that a new party is not imminent has been reached because of the public hysteria and private menace of this pre-campaign. This party is horribly ruptured. And whether the winner is a continuity candidate backed by the party’s hierarchy, or a change candidate aghast at the party’s hierarchy, their priority will simply be to stay alive in the 18 months before the 2026 election.

There will be no serious thought given to getting into government; there will only be headspace for staying in Parliament.

The identity of the leader will not change the outcome in 2026. It is preordained. Success is keeping the corpse warm.

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