Why MSP's defection shows Tories risk disaster by mimicking Farage

In the end, the hardest part was finding someone to walk the dog. When Jamie Greene announced his decision to leave the Scottish Conservatives last week, it was a surprise but no great shock.

Moderate, liberally minded people like Jamie are increasingly unwelcome amongst the Tories as they lurch to the right and chase Nigel Farage’s tail.

Where moderate, liberally minded people are welcome, of course, is amongst the Liberal Democrats. It was not too long before serious conversations started with Jamie about how he might find himself a new political home, as so many others have.

As a former Chief Whip, I can tell you that these talks sometimes involve awkward discussions of past disagreements. With Jamie, however, it was pretty easy to find common ground.

The Scottish Conservatives are terrified that Nigel Farage's Reform UK party will overtake them in the Holyrood elections next year (Picture: Dan Kitwood) | Getty Images

The Davidson days are over

So it was that, as he was putting the finishing touches to his speech to the Scottish Liberal Democrat party conference, I found myself walking his dog around the streets of Inverness, poo bags at the ready. Never let it be said that politics is lacking in glamour.

Jamie’s journey is one that quite a lot of people are on currently. In the past, moderate, liberally minded Scots thought they could trust the Conservatives to be a safe voice for their interests, under the leadership of someone like Ruth Davidson. Now they’ve discovered they were barking up the wrong tree.

On both the Scottish and UK-wide level, the Tories have been tacking further and further right – and further and further away from the priorities of most people.

Kemi Badenoch seems to take her political cues from whatever people are most angry about on Elon Musk’s social media site on any given day. That reached a new low this week as she took the side of the Israeli government when it barred British MPs from a parliamentary delegation to Occupied Palestine.

Reform tail wagging Tory dog

Meanwhile Russell Findlay’s Scottish Tories are turning in on themselves. It speaks volumes that their response to Jamie Greene’s departure was to suggest that they were already planning to kick him out – for being too liberal.

They are terrified that Nigel Farage will overtake them in the Holyrood elections next year. The Reform tail is now wagging the Tory dog.

The trouble, of course, is that politics is a dog-eat-dog world. The Tories may think they can save themselves by running to the right but they are just as likely to be consumed by Farage’s party in the process.

All the while, moderate Scots are looking on bewildered. People who are sick of years of SNP failure and want a sensible alternative, who just want their health service to work, their trains and ferries to run on time, and functioning care homes for their parents, they see a Conservative party which is disconnected from their interests.

When the Tories blow their far-right dog whistles, most Scots are not listening. Instead, whether it is voters, party members or indeed politicians like Jamie Greene, more and more people are concluding that the Scottish Conservatives are no longer the safe choice that they once appeared to be.

For moderate, liberally minded Scots, there will always be a warm welcome in the Liberal Democrats. If you’re lucky, we might even walk your dog.

Alistair Carmichael is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland.