Opinion: Say no to Boris Johnson, says Brendan O'Hara MP

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The Tory leadership race is well under way and Scotland is about to have a new Prime Minister imposed on us: one we didn’t vote for, to lead a government we didn’t elect, and who’ll be hell-bent on delivering a Brexit that Scotland overwhelmingly rejected.

And what makes that awful prospect absolutely terrifying is that Boris Johnson is the runaway, odds-on favourite to be that PM.

I find it absolutely bewildering that so many of his Tory colleagues fall for his well-rehearsed and carefully-choreographed buffoonery and are about to hand him the keys to Downing Street.

I know they haven’t forgotten – and are therefore simply choosing to ignore – his staggeringly inept two years as Foreign Secretary, a period in office littered with embarrassing, schoolboy gaffes, offensive and gratuitous insults and a total lack of diplomatic nous that, among other things, ensures that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe remains in jail in Iran to this day.

But none of this will come as a surprise to his Tory colleagues. Years before he became Foreign Secretary, Mr Johnson’s behaviour and character were revealed by Max Hastings, his former boss at the Daily Telegraph, who observed: “He is not a man to believe in, to trust or respect...He is bereft of judgement, loyalty or discretion.”

Remarkably though, none of that seems to matter to that tiny, self-selecting Tory membership, whose priorities stretch no further than delivering an insane no-deal Brexit and ensuring the survival of the Conservative party.

Max Hastings also wrote: “If the day ever comes that Boris Johnson becomes tenant of Downing Street...it means that Britain has abandoned its last pretensions to be a serious country.”

Well, that day is almost upon us, and Scotland is going to have to choose a future.

Do we remain part of that non-serious country, about to be led by a man cut from the same cloth as Donald Trump and Nigel Farage, or do we, as an independent, social democratic country, remain within the EU?

I believe we owe it to our children and our grandchildren to reject Johnson’s right-wing populism – and that means saying yes to Scotland in Europe when we next get the chance.