RORY Stewart only has a few weeks in which to burnish his Tory leadership credentials by insulting someone. The eager, young member for Penrith and The Border has emerged as everyone’s favourite dark horse to become our next Prime Minister. And yes, there is something pleasingly John Buchan about him as you imagine him hatching boyish stratagems with his old school chums, Archie and Sandy, over post-prandial brandies in a pile set amidst the Cheviots. “Listen chaps, I’ve always jolly well fancied a spot of walking in the foothills of Kathmandu, what. Cook can pack us up with some of her home made scones and marmalade and we’ll be back in time for tea.”

I fear though, that a gaping hole exists in Mr Stewart’s gleaming curriculum vitae. Unlike his main competitors in the race for Number Ten, he has palpably failed to alienate any of Britain’s ethnic, cultural or social communities. Even more damagingly, his career positively reeks of a reasonable and respectful attitude to the citizens of other countries.

Mr Stewart had better get his finger out and fast. For in the race to the bottom which was always the destiny of any Tory leadership contest in the current febrile climate, a degree of animosity towards one of the UK’s more unkempt communities has become a prerequisite. As the list of leadership contestants begins to resemble the queue for second helpings in the Eton refectory, a pattern has begun to emerge. Can you spot it?

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A chap called Mark Harper has become the latest to toss in his glove. The same Mr Harper it was who, in 2013, dreamt up a wheeze of discouraging illegal immigrants. This one consisted of sending out ‘special’ lorries to tour those areas in London where these wretches were thought to be skulking. These vehicles had large signs attached to them aimed at spreading fear and loathing: “Here Illegally? Go Home or Risk Arrest.”

His fellow leadership contender, Michael Gove, that specialist in ruthless politeness, appealed to another section of the modern Conservative and Unionist community. He simply sticks the boot into his fellow sweaties. “For most English people,” said Mr Gove, in a lame attempt at television humour some years ago, “the Scot is an unattractive creature. Most Scots in London are not professionals, they're not in journalism, the law or in business; they're usually in the London underground begging.”

And here’s Boris Johnson’s thoughts on the favoured apparel of Muslim women: “If you tell me that the burka is oppressive, then I am with you. I would go further and say that it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes.”

Esther McVey, anyone, our former Works and Pensions secretary? Not content with misleading Parliament over the rollout of Universal Credit she became a champion of the bedroom tax and hailed the increase in families using foodbanks as “positive”.

So, as you can see, Mr Stewart will soon have to get down and dirty with the rest of them if he is to reach out and connect with the core Tory membership. I’d be looking at people with tattoos. Single mothers and the mad Irish are also known occasionally to have caused ripples in the shires. Have those workshy Romanian gypsies been taken yet? There’s still time, you know.

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Thus, from this unlovely lot, will the nature and course of Britain’s future path be set as the prospect of us leaving the European Union without a deal edges nearer. We’ve now reached a point where the time for debate and analysis of the consequences of a no-deal scenario has come and gone. Theresa May’s long and tortuous road to her own demise followed by this grotesque Tory beauty contest seem to have consigned all talk of what a post-Brexit future holds to the past.

When did we last hear about the threat to workers’ rights posed by Brexit? Many of them, such as working time protections, trade union protection and fair pay and conditions have been achieved over a four-decade-long process of negotiation and testing by our membership of the EU. There’s a reason why many representatives of the UK’s corporate community were eager to fund the Leave campaign and why the main Tory leadership contenders will bow before them over the coming weeks and months.

In Scotland, the government we’ve consistently returned over the course of several elections encompassing every possible political franchise – Holyrood, Westminster, local authority and now Europe – has been treated with contempt by those who have created this chaos. It’s one of the many reasons why the SNP created another piece of UK electoral history last week by securing half of Scotland’s seats in the European parliament.

At First Minister’s Questions last week Willie Rennie, leader of the Scottish Liberal-Democrats chastised Nicola Sturgeon for once more setting a second independence referendum in motion. Mr Rennie suggested that in the midst of the UK’s current political upheaval the First Minister of Scotland was being irresponsible in seeking to exacerbate this by more division. From his Unionist perspective perhaps Mr Rennie had a point.

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There is another perspective, though. As the sense of Britain sleep-walking into a cultural and civic void deepens it would be irresponsible not to plot a way out of it at the earliest opportunity. The Tory leadership contest has now become the survival of the nastiest and most reactionary. The favourite is being charged with malfeasance in public office for allegedly lying about what we pay to the EU as part of the Leave campaign. Scotland will thus be removed from the EU against its settled will, forged in the course of a referendum and a European election, by a disciple of the hard right. That person will have assumed the right to do so after a vote taken by less than half of one per cent of the UK population.

The longer Scotland is happy to remain within this arrangement the more we risk becoming a vassal state, nice to look at, sure, but happy to leave the room when the big decisions are being taken. If we choose to be a part of the UK in these circumstances then we deserve everything that’s coming down the line.