What will happen to Murdo Fraser if he doesn't win the Scottish Tory leadership contest? Having spent the previous few months saying that the Tory party in Scotland is dead and the centre-right needs a new party to represent their views, can he really stay in the Tory party under Ruth Davidson, Jackson Carlaw or Margaret Mitchell?
It's interesting that Murdo appears to have the support of the majority of Tory MSPs. What this is essentially saying is that the majority of people elected to serve under the Tory banner in Holyrood no longer believe in that party. If one of the other three wins, then these MSPs are effectively going to continue living a lie. How can these people credibly ask voters to give their vote for a party that they themselves do not think is fit for purpose?
If Murdo Fraser loses, I can only see two options for him: 1) slink into the background in the same manner as a former leader, or 2) leave the party. If he chooses option one, then he might as well start looking for jobs in the media as the Scottish Michael Portillo. If he chooses option two, however, then he would have to decide if he just remains as an independent (perhaps still taking the Tory whip?) or going about creating that new party he wanted.
This final option would be the most interesting, because there is then the question of why all these MSPs who backed Murdo's bid for the leadership under a new party should also remain with the Tories. The way I see it, Murdo has opened Pandora's box, and so now the new party he has talked of must come to fruition. It would be absurd for these MSPs who said they backed his vision to suddenly say "err, sorry mate, didn't really mean it. We're going to stick with the winning team, even though we've all correctly identified them as losers."
Let's be clear about this: this isn't like the SNP, where you can vote for them even if you don't support independence. A vote for Murdo is a vote for the dissolution of the Tory party in Scotland and the creation of a brand new party. These people aren't voting for Murdo to be the leader of the Tories - they're voting for him to take them into his new party.
This could all become very interesting. I've looked at the scenario here of Murdo losing, splitting off into his own new party anyway and his followers joining him. The reverse could also happen, where Murdo wins, he creates his new party, but then the question is asked of those who didn't originally believe in his vision: "what changed your mind? Who invited you?" Regardless of the actual result, we are now looking at two distinct groups in the current Tory party in Scotland: those who want a fresh start and a fresh party that finally embraces the realities of Scottish politics; and those who want to keep banging their head against the brick wall, pretending that devolution is just a minor mishap and blatantly believing things should go back to how they were pre-1999. Either way, surely the only credible outcome is a new party, headed by Murdo, and the current Tory party, headed by Ruth Davidson or whoever?
We're used to splits on the far left: are we looking at a genuine split on the centre-right?
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