Formidable: Ruth Davidson has made it clear that she wants Theresa May to abandon her Brexit strategy and go for something akin the Norway model

After the election, comes the coup. I don’t mean a coup against Theresa May by Conservative MPs. The parliamentary party want to keep her in place, if only as a marionette whose strings they will pull mercilessly until the time comes to cut them.

No, the coup is against the electorate itself — and the plotters are the small number of Tory MPs who see May’s humiliation as an unexpected opportunity to destroy her plan to take the UK out of the EU single market and customs union. Their number, I’m told, is no more than ten, but they are counting on the support of the most formidable woman — no, make that the most formidable person of either gender — in British politics.

I refer to Ruth Davidson, who led the Scottish Conservative Party to triumph last Thursday, increasing their number of MPs from just one to 13.

If it were not for the ebullient and articulate Ms Davidson’s genius as a campaigner (a polar opposite to the party’s leader at Westminster), we might well now be witnessing the first days of the Corbyn government. So the Tory Party is deeply indebted to Ms Davidson.

Control

The problem is the price she wants to extract is one which would almost certainly destroy the party. In interviews immediately after the General Election, using only slightly coded language, Ms Davidson made it clear she wants Mrs May to abandon her Brexit strategy and go for something akin to the Norway model — that is, to remain a member of the single market.

There are three difficulties with this position, sometimes described, reassuringly, as ‘soft Brexit’.

It means the UK would still have to pay billions of pounds a year into the EU budget. It means we would still be subject to ‘freedom of movement’ — so no control over immigration. And it means the British parliament would still be subject to a higher judicial authority, the court of the European Free Trade Association, which is a mere transmitter of the decisions of the European Court of Justice.

Naturally, Ms Davidson did not spell this all out. But when asked on Saturday if her vision involved retaining free movement, she said Mrs May’s plan to withdraw from the single market and go for a free-trade deal would ‘now have to be revisited.

‘What’s really clear is that the Conservative Party, having failed to win a majority, will now have to work with others. That means we can look again at what it is we want to achieve as we leave the EU and I want to be involved in those discussions’.

Ms Davidson, in fact, is not at Westminster herself. She is a member of the Holyrood assembly and her ambition is to become First Minister of Scotland. But the new battalion of Scottish Conservative MPs will follow her lead.

Threat: Miss Davidson had said that the 13 Scottish Tory MPs, pictured above, 'will vote entirely as they believe that they should’ rather than obediently follow a line handed down by Conservative Whips in Westminster

When she said that those 13 MPs ‘will vote entirely as they believe that they should’, this was nothing less than a threat that they would not obediently follow a line on the EU negotiations handed down by the Conservative Whips’ office in Westminster, but hold to their own position: hers. I have been told by one Westminster Tory that she has already made that clear to the Whips’ office.

Be certain about this: given the tiny majority the government will have in the Commons (even with the support of the ten Democratic Unionist MPs) the Conservatives could lose any vote if the 13 Scottish Conservative MPs abstained. This gives Ms Davidson great power — and she intends to exercise it.

There are particular reasons why she is much keener on the so-called Norway model — and not just because she was a passionate Remainer in the EU referendum. Scotland, for centuries, has suffered from de-population, so unlimited immigration from the EU 27 is not the problem that it is in England.

And though Scotland voted largely for Remain, it now wants its ‘own waters’ back: you can be a member of the single market without also subscribing to the hated Common Fisheries Policy (hated, that is, by the Scottish fishing industry).

In that interview on Saturday, Ms Davidson also declared: ‘We have complete autonomy on policies, which is why we published our own manifesto, which we fought on.’

Targeted

On hearing this, I immediately downloaded the Scottish Conservative Party’s 2017 Manifesto to discover its unique line on Brexit. This is what it says: ‘As we leave the European Union, we will no longer be members of the single market or customs union, but we will seek a deep and special partnership including a comprehensive free trade and customs agreement.’

Rejection: John McDonnell immediately scotched the idea that Labour could now oppose May's plan to take Britain out of the single market

In other words, Ms Davidson’s Scottish Conservative party campaigned for exactly the same so-called ‘hard’ Brexit as Mrs May did.

It is true the Conservative Party has not won a parliamentary majority with its manifesto commitment. When Ms Davidson says they should therefore ‘work with others’ on this, she must principally mean the Labour Party.

However, Labour’s own manifesto was explicit in backing the idea of leaving the EU single market, and that this would mean an end to freedom of movement.

This was Labour’s attempt to avoid a haemorrhaging of support in constituencies where a majority of its traditional supporters had voted Leave: it also feared the Tories would otherwise scoop up almost all the votes which had gone to Ukip in the 2015 election. Corbyn’s team achieved its aim: satisfied by Labour’s manifesto commitment to leave the single market and freedom of movement, vast numbers of ex-UKIP voters turned out for Labour last week.

Indeed, when Robert Peston on his eponymous TV programme yesterday invited the Labour Shadow Chancellor to agree with the proposition that Labour could now oppose May’s plan to take Britain out of the single market, John McDonnell immediately rejected the idea.

And when Peston protested that the referendum did not mandate leaving the single market, McDonnell dismissed this, too: ‘People will interpret not leaving the single market as not respecting the result of the referendum.’

So, adding the votes cast for the two main parties’ manifestos, it is clear that there is a colossal mandate for what its critics denounce as ‘hard Brexit’. Add to that the votes cast for the DUP, which won the most seats in Northern Ireland as a pro-Brexit party, and over 90 per cent of ballots were for parties pledged to leave the single market.

Sabotage

While Conservative, Labour and DUP vote shares went up, it was the Liberal Democrats and the SNP — both explicitly opposed to Brexit — who lost popular support. Look at what happened in Vauxhall, where Kate Hoey, London’s only pro-Brexit Labour MP, was targeted by the Lib Dems, who even brought in that indefatigable Remoaner, Bob Geldof, to help.

Losing support: Tim Farron survived by 777 votes in his seat before having the gall to say it was the Conservative Party’s Brexit vision which had ‘been rejected’

Hoey massacred them, gaining a 20,000 majority. And the Lib Dem leader Tim Farron had his 8,172 majority annihilated by the Tories, surviving by only 777 votes. Farron then had the gall to say it was the Conservative Party’s Brexit vision which had ‘been rejected’.

Even Farron seems calmly reasonable compared to the Tory MP Anna Soubry, who yesterday told the BBC’s Andrew Neil: ‘The people have spoken and they have rejected hard Brexit — we can all agree on that.’

On this issue, the truth and what comes out of Soubry’s mouth have little in common. During the referendum campaign, the then Business Minister actually claimed that if the UK were no longer a full member of the single market, our exports to the EU would fall to ‘almost zero’.

Soubry is part of that little gang of Tory MPs hoping that Ruth Davidson will aid their sabotage of a trade deal with the EU not tied to free movement. This would be suicidal for the Conservative Party: it would plunge them back into the internal conflict which was supposed to have been settled by the Brexit referendum.

Such an internecine war would destroy the fragile new government — propelling Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street.

Message to Ruth Davidson: you, more than anyone, last week saved the Conservatives — and Great Britain — from that prospect.

Why destroy your achievement?