British politics have become indistinguishable from a cheap reality show. The line up of careerists, opportunists, hacks, intellectual pygmies, and narcissists who are standing for leadership of the Conservative party are notable only for their mediocrity and sense of entitlement. We're invited to choose between them on the basis of the amount of fawning attention paid to them by a media which is desperate for controversy, clicks, and personalities who make for good TV. That's why the two leading politicians in the UK right now are Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. It's not despite the fact that they have no principles or policies, it's because of it.
Boris Johnson remains the candidate that the other Tory leadership hopefuls need to beat. His position was only strengthened by his party's utterly disastrous performance in the European elections, Tory MPs have been panicked by the discovery that the only seat they held was the one at a seance. Despite the fact that there was a surge in pro-remain votes and all that the results proved was that the UK is as divided as ever, there's certainly no majority for a no-deal crashing out of the EU. But that's not how the Tories will choose to see it. No rational person could interpret these results as meaning that the UK electorate wants the Conservative party to take us all out of the EU at the end of October with or without a deal. But we're not talking about a rational person here. This is after all that same Tory party which interpreted Lib Dem gains in the English local elections as a sign that the electorate wanted it to get on with delivering Brexit. In their self-serving delusional state, fuelled by panic and lubricated by fear, many Conservative MPs will now be calculating that Boris Johnson is the only leadership candidate who is able to take on Nigel Farage at his own game. We're in for a rough ride.
The only Tory leadership candidate with anything approaching a moral compass or intellectual heft is Rory the Tory I'm Scottish You Know Stewart. And that's being generous. Rory is perhaps best known in Scotland for his risible attempt at propaganda dressed up a historical documentary which was shown on the BBC a few months before the independence referendum. In this programme - which definitely wasn't Better Together propaganda paid for out of your BBC licence fee, oh no - Rory tried to persuade us that we're really all British because the origins of Scottish nationhood lie in a false consciousness imposed upon us by the Romans. So if you wanted to know what did the Romans ever do for us, now you have your answer.
Rory then spent the rest of the indy ref campaign trying to get people to contribute rocks to a big cairn he was building on the border. It was supposed to symbolise the unity of Scotland and England. Sadly all that Rory succeeded in doing was creating a monument to the union which turned out to be quite literally a pile of rubble that was soon abandoned and neglected. Well, that proved to be strangely prescient. Rory has no chance in this leadership campaign, not merely because he bears an unfortunate resemblance to an elf with a hangover, but because he speaks far too much sense about Brexit for Conservative party members and compared to the other candidates he comes across as moderate and reasonable. If you don't speak the language of Brextremism, the Tory party membership isn't going to listen, no matter how much rubble as a monument to the UK that you point to.
The EU election result was the worst election result for the Conservatives since 1832. The party was hammered by the electorate. In England its voters deserted it because it had failed to deliver Brexit. In Scotland its voters deserted it because it had failed to listen to Scotland. There is no new Tory leader who can square that circle. Regaining support in England can only come at the expense of losing what it has left in Scotland. And we all know which of those two will be the preference of any new Conservative leader. The Tories can have their Brexit, or their can have their 'precious union', but they can't have both. It's not inconceivable that a new Tory leader who's making an open pitch to the English nationalists who are so fervent in their demand for Brexit will consider that cutting their losses as far as Scotland is concerned will be a sacrifice they're prepared to make. What's going on in the Conservative party has been likened to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. That's unfair. It's more like complaining about the decor in the Titanic's ballroom as it lies rusting three miles down at the bottom of the Atlantic while claiming that Chris Grayling has definite plans to introduce the vessel as an additional ferry service in the event of a no deal Brexit.
The truth is it doesn't matter which of the Conservative candidates win. The parliamentary arithmetic remains unchanged. The UK remains as divided as ever. England has voted for Brexit, and a triumpant Anne Widdecombe was on the TV demanding an immediate no deal exit from the EU, her voice like having fingernails scraped down your soul. Meanwhile Scotland remains as unreconciled to Brexit as it ever was, and Ruth Davidson's bubble has been well and truly popped. Ruth told the people of Scotland to use this election to send a message to Nicola Sturgeon, and that's exactly what they did. Only not in the way that Ruth had hoped they might.
These elections show that Scotland and England are two countries, with two paths, and two different futures. 62% of Scottish voters rejected Brexit in 2016, and now every area in Scotland has returned a substantial majority for remain parties. The people of Scotland have comprehensively rejected the Tory party and its Brexit plans. They've humiliated Labour and its fence sitting. It was so bad that the only people who had a worse night than Labour was BBC Scotland.
If after all this the UK still leaves the EU, then Scotland must have an independence referendum immediately. Brexit will be the final indignity proving that Scotland is neither listened to nor respected within the UK. It makes no difference which Tory opportunist gets an opportunity, because one thing you can be certain of, and that is that none of the Tory party leadership contenders cares about what Scotland thinks.
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