(CN) — Stark divisions have opened up between Scottish and English Conservatives as the ongoing fallout from Boris Johnson’s collapse in authority sends political shockwaves around the United Kingdom.
The leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Douglas Ross, has called for Prime Minister Johnson to resign, following further revelations of parties in Downing Street which appear to have defied coronavirus lockdown restrictions. The call makes him the first senior member of the governing Conservative Party to publicly demand Johnson's resignation.
Following Johnson admitting and apologizing for having attended the apparently rule-breaking party during a rowdy House of Commons session on Wednesday, Ross was clear in his demand. Speaking to Scottish broadcaster STV, he explained: “I said yesterday if the Prime Minister attended this gathering, party, event, in Downing Street on the 20th May then he could not continue as prime minister. So regretfully I have to say his position is no longer tenable."
“I don't want to be in this position, but I am in the position now where I don't think he can continue as leader of the Conservatives," Ross said. "I know from speaking to colleagues in the Scottish Parliament and the U.K. Parliament that there is significant unrest and concern about the actions that took place in Downing Street."
Some members of the U.K. Cabinet have publicly backed the PM, whilst others have largely remained silent about their leader’s future. Key leadership rival, Chancellor Rishi Sunak, has been notably inconspicuous in recent days.
Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg, a Johnson ally, ignited tensions with the Scottish Conservatives on Wednesday evening. When asked on the BBC’s "Newsnight" about the significance of Ross’s statement, he dismissed the Scottish leader as “a lightweight figure,” instead expressing a preference for the opinion of the Westminster-based Secretary of State for Scotland Alister Jack, who has publicly backed the prime minister. His comments were echoed by Housing Secretary Michael Gove, another key player in the leadership drama.
Jack did not welcome the comments. He subsequently expressed his view that “Douglas Ross is not a lightweight. He’s a very serious politician.” Nor were the comments appreciated in Edinburgh, where it was reported that Johnson had been uninvited from the Scottish Conservative conference in March – an unprecedented exclusion for a party leader, let alone incumbent prime minister.
It has been reported that all 31 Conservative Members of the Scottish Parliament support Ross’s resignation call, and the tension has reignited talk of a split from the national party.
Opposing the prime minister is a move likely to go down well among the Scottish electorate. Johnson has always been profoundly unpopular among Scots, widely regarded to personify a privileged English pomposity that is anathema to Scottish sensibilities.
In his previous career as a journalist, Johnson has a long record of being associated with offensive comments about Scottish people. In 2005 he wrote that former Prime Minister Gordon Brown was not fit for the office on the grounds that he was Scottish. The previous year, as editor of the right-wing magazine The Spectator, Johnson oversaw the publication of an obscene poem which described Scots as “tartan dwarves” who were “polluting our stock” and suggested they should be ghettoized and “exterminated." In 2007, Johnson used the slur “Scotch” in a newspaper column.
In 2020, as prime minister, Johnson was widely reported to have described devolution – the process by which Scotland gained its own parliament – as “a disaster north of the border” and “Tony Blair’s biggest mistake.” After an angry backlash in Scotland, Johnson was forced to state publicly that he supported devolution, “though not when it’s used by separatists and nationalists to break up the U.K.”