Scottish Tories hit out at ‘pathetic’ Jacob Rees-Mogg over comments about Douglas Ross

Furious Scottish Conservatives have accused the Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg of undermining the Union after he dismissed Douglas Ross, the party’s leader north of the border, as a “lightweight”.

The comments by Mr Rees-Mogg were attacked by allies of Mr Ross and led to fresh calls for the Scottish wing of the party to sever its ties with England.

The row erupted after Mr Ross became the first senior Tory to call for Boris Johnson to resign after admitting he attended a drinks party at Downing Street during lockdown.

The Scottish Tory leader described the Prime Minister’s position as “no longer tenable”, with the vast majority of the party’s 31 MSPs later saying they agreed with this view.

The rift between the English and Scottish wings of the party intensified when Mr Rees-Mogg, who is supporting Mr Johnson, said Mr Ross “has always been quite a lightweight figure”.

His comments enraged some Tory MSPs, who said they undermined the Union by belittling the party’s Scottish leader.

One told i: “In one pathetic and misjudged comment, Jacob Rees-Mogg has given the SNP exactly what they wanted and the opportunity to attack both the UK party and the Union.

“I’ve spent my whole political life trying to defend and strengthen Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom – colleagues like Rees-Mogg are consistently letting us down and need to understand that their actions and words have consequences.”

Scottish Tory Justice spokesman Jamie Greene said Mr Rees-Mogg should “go and have a long lie down”, before adding “maybe not in the House of Commons”, a dig about an infamous photo of the MP laid out horizontally on the green benches.

The party’s finance spokeswoman Liz Smith also backed Mr Ross, saying he was “certainly not” a lightweight and adding: “I thought that was a very ill-advised remark from Jacob Rees-Mogg.”

Former Tory MSP Adam Tomkins also raised the prospect of a formal separation between the Scottish and English arms of the party, calling for “serious thinking” about such a move.

“All of the bad days the Scottish Tories have in Holyrood are not caused by the Scottish Tories in Holyrood, they are caused by events 400 miles south,” he told the BBC.

“The Scottish Conservative Party have a range of really important, substantive ideas to bring to the table in Scotland about economic policy and about social policy, and they are being drowned out because of the pantomime of the politics of Boris Johnson.”

Downing Street insisted that the UK Government was focused on action to “strengthen the Union” in the wake of the derogatory remarks by Mr Rees-Mogg.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman highlighted the creation of a new council chaired by Mr Johnson and involving the leaders of the devolved nations as evidence of this commitment.