Ruth Davidson to REPLACE Theresa May? Poll reveals Tory is 'best option for Brexit'

[Denzil_DC]

(A continuation of what has been described as my preoccupation with the idea of Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson standing for UK Tory leader. I also figured we could do with some light relief in these grim times, but didn't imagine I'd find it in the pages of the Express.)

RUTH DAVIDSON is an “attractive proposition” and the most popular senior Conservative in the eyes of the public who has “boosted her credentials” as a future leader of the Conservative party, a new poll has claimed.

...

WPI Strategy Director Nick Faith said: “All the other potential candidates - except for Ruth Davidson - are seen as more likely to drive support away from the Conservatives.

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As a current member of the Scottish parliament, the senior Tory is unable to run for the position.

However, with veteran colleague Sir Nicholas Soames rumoured to be readying himself to stand aside as the MP for Mid Sussex, there could be an opportunity for Ms Davidson to make a move down south.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/912246/Ruth-Davidson-Theresa-May-Brexit-general-election-Boris-Johnson-David-Davis-Amber-Rudd

The YouGov poll (commissioned by the Westminster Policy Institute Strategy PR consultancy) offers some lukewarm comfort to Theresa May, as it seems 41% of respondents thought she should stay put. Unfortunately, this seems to be because her suggested possible replacements are seen as even greater liabilities.

Respondents thought Boris Johnson and David Davis would each lose the Tories 9% of the vote and Amber Rudd would cost them 10% (for some reason, Brexit darling Jacob Rees-Mogg didn't figure in the poll). They thought that Davidson, by contrast, would equal May's performance in the last general election, which was such a roaring success for the party.

I hate to discourage this wave of excitement, but there are at least a couple of snags. Davidson's Tories' support in Scotland is sagging, and they've fallen back into third place behind Scottish Labour, as the latest Survation/Daily Record poll showed:



Then there's the question of Soames generously bequeathing his seat. There have indeed been recent persistent rumours in the right-wing press that he's ready to spark a by-election by resigning and retiring to the Lords. But most of those spreading the rumours haven't checked with the man himself. Well, until a couple of days ago ...

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Tom Newton Dunn
✔
@tnewtondunn

Poll reveals @RuthDavidsonMSP is voters’ front runner to replace Theresa May as the most popular senior Tory. Will @NSoames stand aside to give her a seat?https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5462108/ruth-davidson-now-voters-number-one-replace-may/ …

Nicholas Soames
✔
@NSoames

#Tomyouknowthststotalballsgetagrip

Tom Newton Dunn
✔
@tnewtondunn
Replying to @NSoames @RuthDavidsonMSP

It’s a great rumour...

Nicholas Soames
✔
@NSoames

#butitsbollockslowgradebullshit

[T_i_B]

1. But who would the Tory grassroots accept?

I strongly suspect that in a Tory leadership contest they would want a Brexit cultist like Michael Gove or Liam Fox. Jacob Rees Mogg may possibly be a loony too far, but not by much.

The more you think about what might have happened if Andrea Leadsom hadn't dropped out of the last leadership contest the more depressed you become about the state of the governing party in this country.

[Denzil_DC]

2. Hard to say, as I obviously find the whole shower of them pretty revolting!

I've been trying to figure out what's/who's behind this YouGov/WPI Strategy poll. Large chunks of the Express article in the OP are verbatim (like word for word) in the Sun article linked in Newton Dunn's tweet. It looks like somebody wants to pump up Davidson for some reason.

The exclusion of at least Rees-Mogg (who's fared well in similar polls in the past, and is, you know, actually an MP already) among the ones you've mentioned is inexplicable.

By the by, Rees-Mogg is skating on thinner ice than usual at the moment. There's a fairly big kerfuffle about recent shenanigans on the floor of the House between him and Brexit Minister Steve Baker.

It's one thing to claim that every economic projection the government's ever done has been wrong, as Baker did the other day, to deflect from the BuzzFeed leak of the Brexit assessment.

It's another to follow this up by having Rees-Mogg pitch a seemingly connived question in the Commons that gave Baker the opportunity to allege that the Civil Service are in the habit of producing Brexit-unfavourable estimates because they want the UK to stay in the customs union (or even abandon Brexit altogether).

It's yet another to have that line of argument blow up in your face when a recording of the discussion you lied about emerges!

Brexit minister forced into apology for maligning civil service

One of Theresa May’s Brexit ministers has been forced to apologise after airing claims in parliament that civil servants had deliberately produced negative economic models to influence policy.

...

The row began after Baker was asked by Jacob Rees-Mogg, a senior Eurosceptic Tory backbencher, to confirm that a Europe expert had told him Treasury officials “had deliberately developed a model to show that all options other than staying in the customs union were bad, and that officials intended to use this to influence policy”.

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Rees-Mogg was referring to an alleged conversation between Baker and Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Research and an expert on EU negotiations, at a lunch at the Tory party conference.

However, several individuals present at the event challenged the claim, including Grant himself and a Tory MP, Antoinette Sandbach. Prospect magazine later issued an audio of the conversation in which there is no suggestion about officials trying to rig the analysis.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/01/brexit-minister-steve-baker-accused-for-second-time-of-maligning-civil-service

Time was when misleading Parliament was a resigning/sacking offence. Those were the days.

Anyhow, skeptical as I am about one-off polls, it would be interesting to see a similar match-up with the names you've mentioned thrown into the ring.

[Denzil_DC]

4. Baker's now apologized to the House, and May seems to think that's enough.

Some background on Steve Baker:

UK minister under fire for failure to declare links to pro-Brexit think tank

Brexit minister Steve Baker is under fire for not declaring his links to a right-wing, pro-Brexit think tank.

The Eurosceptic Conservative MP has been a director and a trustee of the right-wing Cobden Centre since founding it in 2010 but chose not to declare this in the MPs’ register of interests. He regularly praises the centre’s work in speeches in the Commons.

Baker resigned his position at the Cobden Centre in June before taking up a cabinet post at the Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU) – but the Ferret has learned that financial authorities were not alerted of Baker’s resignation and the Brexit minister is still listed as a director of the Centre.

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Politicians and transparency campaigners have called on Baker to be upfront about his relationships with pro-Brexit lobby groups.

https://theferret.scot/brexit-steve-baker-cobden-centre/

Those other lobby groups include the ultra-hard Brexit-touting European Research Group (co-member with Rees-Mogg) and dubious charity Legatum.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Amazingly, Rees Mogg is the bookies' favourite, and leads a Conservative Home survey of members

https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/next-conservative-leader

They don't give Fox any credibility, though - many have him at 100/1. More dodgy dealings to be found, I'd guess, if he's put that far below those at an equivalent level of government.

I do see support for Rees-Mogg online, though that's from the same people who were arguing that there was no reason for May not to appoint Farage to the cabinet as "minister for No Deal".

How representative Conservative Home's panel of members is of party members, I don't know, but here's their latest result:

https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2018/02/our-survey-next-tory-leader-three-brexiteers-lead-as-last-month-rees-mogg-gove-and-johnson.html

I suspect the bookies may be basing their odds largely on that. A November YouGov/Times poll had him leading among Tory voters:

Link to tweet

I think he'd come unstuck in a contest, though. I think his rivals would be too experienced at trashing their opponents.

[LeftishBrit]

5. Most unlikely IMO

She is (1) openly lesbian; (2) has a record of being not so keen on hard Brexit; (3, and maybe worst of all from the point of view of the Tory base) has her political base in a devolved Scotland. Some party members might accept any one of these things, but not all three.

[T_i_B]

6. It's her views on the EU that would make her unacceptable

...to the Tory grassroots. They aren't so big on homophobia these days, and even not being from the Home Counties isn't such a big issue for them.

But on the other hand, the Tory members I come across are overwhelmingly wildly anti-EU, and that issue will be a deal breaker for many. These are the same people who elected IDS Tory leader over Ken Clarke in 2001, and if anything they have only regressed since then.

[LeftishBrit]

7. You are probably right

Though with the Scottish part: it's not so much her being Scottish as such - I don't think there'd be a big problem with a Scottish MP, beyond the fact that even now there aren't that many to choose from - as her establishing her career in the devolved Scottish parliament. Many Tories to this day are suspicious of devolution, and all too ready to suspect the devolved Scottish and Welsh governments of being uppitty: anything that might seem to involve someone from that background *being the boss of* the Home Counties MPs would incite a great deal of harrumphing from the party's Neanderthal wing. Though some might give her a pass for having helped to prevent (so far) Scottish independence. But yes, being as anti-EU as possible has become a sort of religion for the RW Tories; and anyone who sees May as too soft on the EU probably won't accept Davidson.