I remember the day an English person I used to work with who doesn’t speak to me anymore found out that I am not left-wing. “You’re not left-wing?” she said incredulously. “But you’re from Scotland! A left-wing country!” I tried to tell her that not all Scots think the same way, but she was outraged, un-friended me (on social media and in real life) and never spoke to me again. True story.

I could, if I wanted to, make today’s column all about people like my former colleague: almost always on the left, always outraged, always clustered round the same few issues (Palestine, LGBTQ+, Scottish independence) and always quick to condemn or ditch anyone who doesn’t agree with them. Their skin is paper thin, it is see-through, and they appear to struggle with the fact that you can like and admire people on the right. You might even, without knowing it, have kissed one or two of them (I know I have).

But anyway, the column isn’t really about people like my former colleague, I simply use her story to highlight something interesting about how Scotland and Scots are sometimes perceived and what Scotland and Scots are actually like. Now is a good time to look at this issue because the Tory leadership contest has just decided on its final two and they are Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick. What are we to make of that then, particularly in a Scottish context?

On the face of it, a choice between Badenoch and Jenrick is a choice between two types of terrible. Badenoch is intellectually incoherent and Jenrick is preternaturally obsessed with immigration. The Tories also appear to be making the same mistake they made when they made Iain Duncan Smith leader: take a sharp right, cement in your hard-core voters, and lose election after election after election.

But there’s also a narrative emerging that the UK Tory party going for Badenoch or Jenrick makes the job of the new Scottish leader, Russell Findlay, much harder than it already is. How on earth is Mr Findlay going to break through in Scotland – a left-wing country! – when the person at the top of the UK party is hard right?

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To be fair, there will certainly be some issues for the Scottish party under either Badenoch or Jenrick but they’re not unique to Scotland. In both England and Scotland, there’s a group of right-leaning centrist voters who might vote Tory or might not, and hard-right unpragmatic policies are likely to turn off those voters. To that extent, Badenoch or Jenrick make the Tories less electable in the whole of the UK. I know this because I am part of that right-leaning centre and I would not vote for Badenoch or Jenrick.

But we should also consider one of the complicating factors which is the fact there’s a swathe of Scots (despite what my former colleague thinks) that, like a swathe of English people, love Badenoch and Jenrick and their views on immigration in particular. It’s certainly true that Scots are (marginally) more positive about immigration than the English but recent research from Migration Policy Scotland suggests that while 38% of Scots would like to see immigration increase, 62% would like it to fall or stay the same. And those who want to see it come down want to see it to come down “a lot”.

This leads to an important question, which is: what will those Scots on the harder right do next? Because, although their numbers are not huge, whether they stick with the Tories, switch to Reform or do something else can and will have an effect on elections in Scotland. In fact, it already has.

Take Douglas Ross’s seat at the general election for example: 5,562 people voted Reform in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East which, as I say, isn’t a huge number but Ross lost the seat to the SNP by 942 so it was more than enough to swing the result. The proportional voting system for Scottish elections is also likely to heighten the effect: Reform got 7% of the vote in Scotland in July (more than the dreaded Greens) which would give them a few MSPs in 2026.

(Image: Reform UK leader Nigel Farage)

It's also important for Russell Findlay – indeed, all the leaders – to consider why some Scots might be thinking the way they are. It’s not irrelevant that Reform had their best Scottish result north of Aberdeen because it’s along that coast that working-class communities such as Fraserburgh have suffered in much the same way working-class communities have suffered in the north of England. They may not feel the effects of immigration in the same way as England, but they do often think along traditional conservative lines and have a sense that the major parties don’t.

I suspect that once Badenoch or Jenrick (take your pick from a bad choice) get going with a distinctly more right-wing agenda, it will attract some of the Scots who voted Reform (167,000 of them). But the challenge for Russell Findlay is how to respond. Go right and you risk losing voters on the centre-right like me; go left and you risk losing voters who are further right and are tempted by Reform. Badenoch or Jenrick may shore up one flank for the party, but they leave the other distinctly vulnerable.

And what makes all this even more interesting is the recent fickleness of voters. Look how many switched from Labour to SNP after the 2014 referendum. Look how many switched back again at the election just gone. Look at how the Tories have gone down and up and down in Scotland. And look how fast the approval rating for Labour and Starmer has plummeted in the last weeks. In this swirling, unpredictable, Floridian atmosphere, the wind may blow us rightwards. Even, dare I say it, in a left-wing country like ours.