Ruth Davidson Set to Resign as Scottish Tory Leader, Sun Reports
Ruth Davidson Set to Resign as Scottish Tory Leader, Sun Reports
(Bloomberg) --
Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative Party leader credited with turning around Tory fortunes in Scotland, will resign her post over Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit policies and the pressures of being a new mother, the Sun newspaper reported.
A spokesman for Davidson said she would make her position clear “in due course” and there would be no further comment Wednesday on the Sun report, which cited people in the Scottish Tory party it didn’t identify.
Losing Davidson would be a huge blow to the Scottish Tories, and English ones too. Former Prime Minister Theresa May’s government only survived the 2017 election -- and Johnson is only prime minister now -- because of Davidson’s campaigning in Scotland that delivered 13 seats for the party.
She was a leading advocate for staying in the EU in the 2016 referendum and repeatedly clashed with Johnson in a TV debate days before the vote, accusing him of misleading voters.
Since Johnson became prime minister, Davidson has criticized him over his refusal to rule out a no-deal Brexit, and also for sacking Scottish Secretary David Mundell and replacing him with an English -- rather than Scottish -- member of Parliament.
Davidson made her feelings about Johnson clear during the leadership contest when she told the BBC she wanted to see him change his behavior, and argued it wouldn’t be in the national interest to dissolve or suspend Parliament to get Brexit done. At the time, Johnson was doing little to counter speculation he was leaning toward doing so if chosen as party leader.
Seeking Change
“I would want to see Boris the prime minister do things differently than Boris the foreign secretary or Boris the candidate or leader of the Leave campaign,” Davidson said.
But the two reached what appeared to be an uneasy truce just five days after Johnson became prime minister when he visited her in Edinburgh, the premier offering his support for Davidson’s ambition to become First Minister at the Scottish parliament elections in 2021.
Still, the politics of Brexit always had the potential to trigger another rift. Scotland overwhelmingly voted to stay in the European Union during the 2016 Brexit referendum, while the ruling Scottish National Party gained momentum from Johnson’s failure to rule out a no-deal Brexit. The SNP has said that would bolster the case for Scotland splitting away from the rest of the U.K.
Scottish Labour MP Ian Murray, also a prominent campaigner for staying in the EU, said in a statement Davidson’s departure would be “deeply felt” by her party.
“She campaigned tirelessly for a Remain vote in the EU referendum, but the Tories under Boris Johnson have become a hard Brexit party, so it is not surprising that it has come to this,” he said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Jessica Shankleman in London at jshankleman@bloomberg.net;Robert Hutton in London at rhutton1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Stuart Biggs, Thomas Penny
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