THE Scottish Conservative rebellion against the Prime Minister highlights long-standing tensions it has with the UK Tories – and is likely to reawaken talk on moves for the party to break away.

Boris Johnson was very much the least favourite of the candidates to succeed Theresa May as leader among the party's Holyrood group of MSPs.

Long regarded as a toxic figure they were worried that with him at the helm they could find themselves out of a job and the party relegated to once more being the third largest in the Scottish Parliament.

Remember “Operation Arse”, the Scottish Tory campaign to stop Johnson becoming party leader?

It was launched just 18 months ago after internal polling showed that Johnson as Prime Minister would reverse Tory gains made in Scotland under Ruth Davidson.

Indeed such was the level of antipathy to Johnson among Scottish Tories there was no need to even name the politician it targeted. A senior party source said at the time: “We called it that so we’d all be clear who we were talking about.”

As Johnson’s popularity boomed among Tories in England and bookies put him as the frontrunner to May, talk resumed of the Scottish party breaking away – an idea which was initially put forward by Murdo Fraser when he stood for the party leadership against Ruth Davidson in 2011.

Fraser’s proposal was that the Scottish party would be a sister to the UK party, with its MPs taking the Conservative whip at Westminster, but would be wholly independent of Conservative central office.

The idea was backed at the time by a number of senior Tories including the former Cabinet minister Malcolm Rifkind and former MEP Struan Stevenson, as well as former party leader David McLetchie. But after Fraser’s defeat the plan was put on hold.

READ MORE: Jackson Carlaw breaks silence on Cummings after Scottish Tory revolt

However, it returned in March last year after May announced her resignation and it quickly became evident Johnson was her likely successor.

“There have been various murmurings around the formation of a separate Scottish party in the past. Indeed there have been suggestions coming from sources close to Ruth that it might be something she might favour,” one parliamentarian told me a the time.

“Certainly if Boris became prime minister there would be a lot of discussions in the Scottish party about what it would mean for us. I wouldn’t rule anything out.”

After Johnson won the leadership contest and the idea won fresh appeal. Adam Tomkins, the party’s constitution spokesman, then backed the plan following Davidson’s resignation last August. “I think it would be a mistake not to talk about it,” he said.

Last night some Tories were keen to play down the issue. “This started a while back and I think it’s gone away now. The settled position we have at the moment is reasonably stable,” one senior Tory said. But note the word “reasonably”.

With the Cummings saga set to play out for some time, we may well soon hear more talk once more of a separate Scottish Tory party.