Gerald Warner: How Ukip can bury Scots Tories’ corpse

IT IS time to put the forsworn and social democratic Tory Party to the sword.

By Gerald Warner Sunday, 26th May 2013, 1:00 am

'Cameron will leave one historic legacy behind him: the liquidation of the oldest surviving political culture in Europe'. Picture: PA

Ukip is the natural agent of this political euthanasia. It only has to gain 5 per cent of the vote in 2015 to deprive the Tories of power: in one poll last week it recorded 22 per cent, with the Tories on 24 per cent. The Conservatives face annihilation in 2015; their support is crumbling into ruin. By 2015 it will be 23 years since the Conservative Party won a general election. After that defeat, if a rump survives to contest in 2020 it will be 28 years since an election victory: that will represent the fate of Liberalism after Lloyd George overtaking the pathetic Tory remnant.

David Cameron will leave one historic legacy behind him: the liquidation of the oldest surviving political culture in Europe. The Tory Party resembles a stately home that has been occupied by feral squatters who have vandalised it from attic to cellars: the “modernisers”. Many descriptions might legitimately be applied to the modernising clique, all of them derogatory, but one cardinal fact stands out: they are fools. Even before the egregious Dave hijacked the Conservative Party, from the moment when kitten-heeled Theresa May strutted the conference platform, insulting activists and telling them there was no room for them in “our” party, it was evident a kamikaze project was in operation.

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The “Big Society”, green taxes, wind farms, reneging on a Lisbon Treaty referendum, reneging on tax relief for married couples, hammering stay-at-home mothers, fixating on the most socialist president the United States has ever experienced, lighting candles to the Great Charlatan Blair, subverting stability in the Middle East, refusing to countenance tax cuts, increasing borrowing, destroying our armed forces and deriding Tory activists as the “Turnip Taleban” or “mad, swivel-eyed loons” – that was the Cameron programme. “Was” because, although he is still dementedly pursuing it, all references to Loser Dave and Toryism now demand the past tense. Last week, he completed the self-destruction of his party by forcing through legislation on homosexual marriage. Since just 127 Conservative MPs voted for the destruction of marriage, while 136 voted against and 40 abstained, Cameron was only able to pass it with the assistance of Labour votes. By no realistic assessment could Loser Dave be regarded as leader of the Conservative Party now: he is now effectively leader of the Labour Party (there was, after all, a vacancy). The marriage debate illustrated the extent to which the pseudo-Conservative Party now parrots the same mindless mantras as the rest of the braindead progressive consensus: “the right thing to do”; “the wrong side of history”; “make a difference”; “equality”; “homophobia”; “in this day and age”…

It was largely superfluous language since so many Conservatives had already moved on: the Ukip vote in the English local elections and the opinion polls signal their destination. It is for these reasons that Nigel Farage and Ukip have good prospects even in Scotland. Scottish Europhilia is a myth: most polls have shown Euroscepticism in Scotland only a few points behind England – in one ComRes poll 18 months ago a higher percentage of Scots than English wanted to leave the EU. The independence referendum has imposed a temporary polarisation on Scottish politics, but after the SNP has been defeated next year, Scots will again find themselves confronted by four social democrat parties cosily cohabiting. Ukip could then appeal to the same discontents as in England.

Above all, the dissolving Scottish Conservative Party offers rich pickings, since Scottish Toryism sold the pass even before the UK party.

Last week Murdo Fraser, a former leadership candidate, wrote an article that began with the definition of insanity, attributed to Einstein, as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. Fraser then proceeded to advocate an intensification of the pro-devolutionary policy that has reduced the Scottish Tory vote from half a million in 1997 to 276,000 in 2011, by supporting the devolving of further fiscal powers to Holyrood. The woman who defeated him narrowly, the abysmal, Ruth Davidson, is also promoting new tax powers, after pledging that the Scotland Act was a “line in the sand”. So, Alex Salmond is to be brought back from the dead after referendum defeat by so-called Unionists gifting him Devo Plus.

Unfortunately, at present, Ukip has a policy of full fiscal devolution to Holyrood. Farage must be persuaded to recognise the insanity of that. His natural Scottish constituency is disillusioned Tories who want to see a stand made for the Union.

If Ukip revises that disastrous policy it has a real prospect of garnering significant support and finally burying the corpse of the Scottish Conservative Party that has been offending our nostrils for too long. In any event, Dave sleeps with the fishes.