Boris Johnson’s downfall will be Scottish independence – Patrick Mercer

Despite this, I did get something right: I always said Boris Johnson was not up to 
the job. Now, with this in mind, with the prospect of Brexit finally ‘‘getting done’’ and 
with a glimmer of hope that Covid is subsiding, it’s time to wonder what the next big issue will be and how the parties will cope.

First, why haven’t Labour been making hay while the Tories have floundered? Why haven’t they been forging a new brand of moderate socialism under a fresh leader: where’s the ‘‘heir to Blair’’?

The truth is that the virus has wrong-footed the Opposition as much as the Government. But it’s more than that – Sir Keir Starmer has got to amputate the Corbynism which still runs deep in Labour.

Look at the anti-Semitism report and the new leader’s admirably incisive action when Jeremy Corbyn wasn’t contrite enough.

A former leader was suspended from the party... and then reinstated after just three weeks. If anything encapsulates Labour’s emasculation it is this: muscular leadership hamstrung by factionalism.

With the Lib Dems nowhere and Johnson unassailable, Sir Keir’s crew might be excused for taking a couple of years off to regroup. But the odd thing is that the Prime Minister isn’t unassailable.

If I’d written that after the last election, I’d have laughed at myself, but his authority has been eviscerated by a series of misjudgments and the departure of the unlovely but effective Dominic Cummings.

Right now, the dependency invested in Mr Cummings seems to have been transferred to the Tory leader’s fiancee Carrie Symonds. But, if it’s shown that Mr Johnson is being driven from the backseat by an unelected, unselected ‘‘first lady’’ who’s not even a paid advisor, the Prime Minister’s critics will be implacable.

There are plenty of them, of course, but the most dangerous and credible are those in his own party. Look at how Mr Johnson’s majority is being threatened over the latest lockdown vote and Spending Review and how he depends on Labour’s supine support.

And, fascinatingly, watch 
how easily the Brexit diehards have morphed into lockdown sceptics – with extra firepower coming from a former chief whip (Mark Harper) and the chairman of the 1922 Committee (Sir Graham Brady).

If you doubt how lethal they can be, ask Sir Iain Duncan-Smith or Theresa May.

But, assuming for a moment that Brexit and Covid are resolved, what will be the 
next iceberg and how will 
the Tory rebels mutate once more?

Well, I don’t believe that 
the final Brexit deal will ever satisfy a rump of them: they 
will try to scratch the scab off 
the wound. This will delight 
Nigel Farage and be manna to the SNP who will relish pouring salt on the sore: Scottish independence will come howling to the fore.

Now, you can say what you 
like about the SNP’s competence. You can point out their 
shocking record on education, finances and health. You can focus on their lethal hypocrisy during the Covid crisis where fatalities in care homes 
rocketed despite Holyrood’s claims to the contrary and you can despair at their totalitarian proposals to outlaw what can be said and thought in your own home – but it won’t do much good.

To underline the point, if Labour have Corbyn and the Tories have Symonds as totems of their own troubles, the SNP have Margaret Ferrier.

She used to be Ms Sturgeon’s Westminster mouthpiece. 
She was the one who castigated Mr Cummings’s trips with every fibre of her partisan being yet, when she tested positive, continued to travel by train, have her hair done, deliver a reading in kirk and commit a clutch of other infectious sins.

But, despite the First 
Minister stripping the whip 
and demanding her head on a plate, Ms Ferrier continues to 
sit in a comfortable nest and feather it; she’s an allegory for the SNP.

Despite all this, Nicola Sturgeon is still favoured, her handling of Covid is perceived 
to be better than England’s and the polls show that independence is increasingly popular. So, if the SNP 
capture more seats next May, there will be a vast constitutional collision with Nicola Sturgeon claiming that she has a 
mandate for a second referendum and Boris Johnson using his patchwork majority to deny it.

Will this really be such a big deal, though? Well, remember how Irish Home Rule sundered British politics for the best part of 30 years: it took a world war before it was resolved. No, devolution has gutted Labour north of the border while Mr Johnson has called it a disaster and dubbed it Tony Blair’s biggest mistake.

Now I suspect it will test our current Government to destruction.

Patrick Mercer OBE is a former Conservative MP.

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