Inevitable Conservatives will lose next election, says former Tory MSP

A former Tory MSP has said it is “inevitable” the Conservatives will lose the next general election following a week of economic turmoil after Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget last Friday.

Professor Adam Tomkins, who was a Scottish Conservative MSP for the Glasgow region between 2016 and 2021, said the economic future of the UK would be in safer hands with Labour than with the Tories.

Speaking to BBC Scotland’s The Nine on Wednesday evening, Professor Tomkins said it was an “extraordinary” thing for a Conservative to say.

He added: “That is an extraordinary thing to have to say and I’m saying it because of what Kwasi Kwarteng has done to the market in the last few days.

“It’s perfectly clear the economic future of the UK would be safer hands if Labour were in power than the Conservatives.”

He argued the Government had “lost control” of the economy.

In an article in Wednesday’s Herald, the Glasgow University law professor endorsed the Labour Party.

Later, he said the party looked like a “government in waiting” following its conference in Liverpool this week.

Professor Tomkins added: “The thing the Conservative party exists to do is to hold office to secure the economic wellbeing of the United Kingdom.

“This feels very much to me a moment like 1992 or 2008 where the country turns on the government.

“It’s absolutely clear what the next election result will be and the Conservatives will lose it, they will deservedly lose it.

“The economic reality behind trussonomics is a disaster that is unfolding, the way in which the pound is being hammered.

“We can’t blame Putin for this, we can’t blame the Ukraine war we can’t blame Covid. It’s insane.

“Every member of the Government is signed up to these policies, this is the path they are committed to following.

“It’s time for the Conservatives to be in opposition.”

Professor Tomkins said Labour winning the next election was inevitable, but the job would be very difficult, adding: “The job will be to somehow pick up the pieces of an economy that has been battered by Covid and is an economy that is now being battered by seriously misguided decisions that are coming from Number 10 and Number 11.”