How the Scottish Tories can survive

‘The thing is,’ says one Conservative member of the Scottish parliament, ‘that we wanted rid of him – just not like this.’ Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross’s decision to stand in next month’s General Election infuriated colleagues. His response to that backlash – to resign his position – has driven some of them positively apoplectic with rage.

The Scottish Conservatives, revived from near death by former leader Ruth Davidson, are now heading towards polling day under the stewardship of a man who’s made it abundantly clear that he prioritises Westminster over Holyrood. Ross’s announcement that he will resign his Scottish Parliamentary seat only if he wins the newly drawn Westminster constituency of Aberdeenshire North and Moray East has, unsurprisingly, exacerbated tensions. If Ross loses next month, he faces a miserable future at Holyrood, sitting on the backbenches among MSPs who feel he has put personal ambition before the interests of their party.

Heavy briefing from what passes as the Scottish Tory establishment suggests MSP Russell Findlay, an award-winning former investigative journalist, is being lined up to succeed Ross. Findlay is a strong debater with good instincts on law and order and equality issues. He is, without question, one of the more impressive figures in the Conservative group at the Scottish parliament. But no amount of talent will help him, or anyone else, escape the difficulties to come for the party.

If Douglas Ross’s successor wishes to see a revival in the political centre-right in Scotland, his or her first decision should be to abolish the party they lead.

I’m far from being the first to suggest such a dramatic move. Back in 2011, in the race to succeed departing Scottish Tory leader Annabel Goldie, MSP Murdo Fraser stood to succeed her on a pledge to replace the party with something new. If he won, his party would work with the Tories at Westminster but it would be an entirely separate entity, allowing its leader to criticise the Conservatives when necessary.

But the timing was all wrong for Fraser’s suggestion. With David Cameron then in Downing Street, the UK Tory party wasn’t a rightward-lurching chaos machine. Scots did not despise his iteration of the Conservatives as they had previous ones.

More importantly, in 2011 it had become clear there would be an independence referendum. The last thing the Unionist side of the constitutional argument needed at that point was  for the Conservative and Unionist party to split.

And so Ruth Davidson became Scottish Tory leader and made a very good fist of things. Through clever messaging (Davidson successfully branded her Scottish Tories defenders of the Union) and sheer force of personality, she breathed new life into the party, leading it from near death to become the second largest party at Holyrood. 

Davidson’s success came despite rather than because of the Conservatives’ record at Westminster. Throughout her leadership – particularly during its final stages before she quit in 2019 – she was hobbled by the worst behaviour of colleagues south of the border. Davidson, a former member of the Territorial Army and Christian (she wears her faith lightly), has a genuine appetite for public service. Her fury at the behaviour of Boris Johnson and others when it came to Brexit was righteous.

With Scottish Labour on the rise, the Tories look likely to fall back into third place at the 2026 Holyrood election. Why should the next Scottish Conservative leader spend two years having to answer for whatever madness the survivors of next month’s general election come up with next? Whether it’s Russell Findlay or someone else, the next Scottish Tory leader won’t win friends by defending, for example, deals with Nigel Farage or signing up to tougher policies on immigration or welfare.

The Scottish Conservatives played a significant role in seeing off the prospect of a second independence referendum. But the party is on the slide now and nobody – not even Ruth Davidson, if she could be persuaded to return – is equipped to stop that.

For years, Scottish Tories have been humiliated by behaviour of colleagues at Westminster. They should stop putting up with this intolerable situation. If the next leader of the Scottish Conservatives wants centre-right politics to flourish in Scotland, their first decision should be to scrap the party and start from scratch.