Ross shouldn't resign, he should stay and regroup

The issue at hand on Tuesday was the breaking news that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt was readying himself to announce an extension to the Energy Profits Levy (EPL) on North Sea oil and gas operators, in the face of very strong, and very public, opposition from Mr Ross and Mr Bowie, the latter of whom is defending a thin majority in a local seat.

Mr Hunt’s decision was no surprise, at least to me. The reality, as I know from my time working for two of the Tories’ post-devolution Scottish leaders and closely observing the others, is that there is a dramatic power imbalance between the UK party and its Scottish arm.

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Devolution has made it worse. I was reminded by Catherine Macleod, who will be well known to readers of these pages, on this week’s Holyrood Sources podcast, that figures like Michael Forsyth and Malcolm Rifkind would not have been ignored by the Prime Ministers and leaders of the day. She is correct.

David McLetchie, the Tories' first Holyrood leader, was as substantial, intellectual and forceful a figure as Sir Malcolm and Lord Rifkind, and yet he was easier for the Westminster leadership to ignore precisely because of Holyrood: they’re fine, they have a Parliament now so we don’t need to make any special concessions.

In a sense, we should expect this. For the first 18 years of devolution, Westminster’s Tory group had either zero or one Scottish MP, not exactly giving the London leadership an incentive to listen. However that is no longer the case; at this election, the Tories in Scotland are on course to return their six current seats, and perhaps bring a couple more, significantly outperforming (in relative terms) the party in England.

In the final analysis, though the decision to extend the EPL will continue to be castigated in the north-east, it will likely not cost the Tories their seats. With redrawn boundaries, a replication of the votes in the election of 2019 would return the three seats surrounding Aberdeen city, including the unchanged Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine seat of Mr Bowie.

The Conservative vote share in Scotland is on the slide, but the vote share of the Scottish National Party - the contender in all three of these seats - is on the slide even faster. Furthermore, voters driven by the fortunes of the North Sea have nowhere else to go. Labour is proposing an increase to the EPL and, even more damagingly, the removal of tax relief on investment in renewables. And the SNP changes its mind on oil and gas with the tide, and is in government in Edinburgh with a party which wants to turn the taps off today.

So, although the strongest majority amongst these three Aberdeenshire seats is in the very low four figures, all are likely safe, and indeed had Mr Ross decided to stay at Westminster, he would almost certainly have gained the new Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey seat, which take in much of his current constituency.

Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine Tory MP Andrew Bowie (Image: Getty)

The predictable response to this latest furore, from opponents and observers alike, is that Mr Ross and Mr Bowie should both resign. This is wrong. They should not, and in the case of Mr Bowie, bound by collective responsibility, he should "double dare" the Government to sack him. Indeed, resigning would simply legitimise and perpetuate the power imbalance: if you don’t like our decisions you can go and we’ll find someone who does.

Nothing good can come from resignations. Both Mr Ross and Mr Bowie are clever, strong performers and solid advocates for common sense politics in chaotic times. There is something significantly more impactful that they could do to prevent The Alchemist’s third and fourth and fifth and 20th occurrences; form a caucus within the Westminster parliamentary group.

This would not be at all unusual in international terms, and indeed there is a model inside the building - the Co-operative Party is notionally the fourth largest party in the House of Commons, with 25 of the Labour party’s 200-odd MPs (they don’t do much, which is where the parallel should stop, but they are there).

This should have happened in 2017. Prime Minister Theresa May shed 25 seats outside Scotland, leaving her on 304, and 22 short of a majority. Ruth Davidson’s Scottish party, though, riding the wave of unionist opposition to the SNPs post-Brexit plans for a second independence referendum, went from one seat to 13, taking Mrs May to 317.

A billion pounds later, the 10 votes of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party took Mrs May, crawling, over the line.

This was a glaring and excruciating missed opportunity for the Scottish Tories. Ms Davidson put Mrs May into Number 10 just as much as the DUP leader Arlene Foster, but did so for free.

Forming a caucus was never really on the cards; Scottish Tories just don’t think that way. But had they done so - electing a leader, creating bespoke policy and voting as a block against every government policy which contravenes it - they would have prevented decisions like the extension of the EPL.

I would concede that Mr Ross would be locking the stable door after several horses have bolted, but it would at least prevent any more being lost.

Readers of these pages will know that I think much more must be done to demarcate the Scottish centre-right and propel it towards Bute House, as opposed to simply helping the British centre-right reach Downing Street. The former is emphatically not a realistic prospect in the short-term.

But if you want to get anywhere, you have to start somewhere.

Andy Maciver is a former Head of Communications for the Scottish Conservatives