What began as one man’s unforced error could result in an overdue reckoning about the future of the centre right in Scotland, according to Scottish Tory insiders. It comes after a bruising week in which Douglas Ross took the ignominious accolade of becoming what is thought to be the first leader of any party to step down in the middle of a UK general election campaign.
Ross himself admitted on a campaign visit on Tuesday that the events of the past few days had “not been good enough”, responding to a growing backlash from colleagues appalled at his surprise announcement last Thursday that he would run for the Aberdeenshire North and Moray East constituency, replacing the expected candidate, David Duguid.
The highly regarded Duguid is in rehab after a serious spinal injury but had believed he was sufficiently recovered to stand and had been adopted by his local party – before they were overruled by the Scottish Tory management board, of which Ross is a member.
As well as local fury in the north-east of Scotland, a key battleground for the Scottish Tories against the SNP, the MSP group was livid at Ross U-turning on his promise to quit the Commons and lead them into the 2026 Scottish parliament elections from Holyrood, where he also has a seat.
Fresh allegations about improper expenses claims relating to his third job as a part-time match official for the Scottish FA tipped the balance, and on Monday morning Ross announced he would stand down as leader on 4 July and, if elected to Westminster, would also stand down as an MSP.
His actions were so apparently self-serving and clumsily executed that even Ruth Davidson, the leader credited with reviving Tory fortunes in Scotland in the 2010s, and normally scrupulous in leaving her successors be, was moved to observe that “part of the job is to take the punches. And that’s what leadership kind of is.”
But it is an idea from Davidson’s election contest that may yet yield what some believe to be a silver lining: should the Scottish Tories split from the UK party entirely – particularly given its likely rightward tack after its widely anticipated defeat on 4 July – and reform as a new centre-right party more attuned to the Scottish political landscape?
Proposed by Murdo Fraser, the party veteran who stood against her in 2011, and rejected by members at the time, the idea has “never been more pertinent,” says Andy McIver, former Scottish Conservative adviser, podcaster and consultant who helped Fraser hone his pitch.
“Back then the Tories were in third place at Holyrood with no prospect of getting into government and nothing has changed. Scotland is unique in having two parties of the centre left who trade power.”
McIver argues that the increase in support in intervening years came largely from “transactional Tories” who believed that party was best-placed to protect the union. With independence “off the table”, he suggests it is time to consider again what a centre-right grouping in Scotland would look like.
This mirrors a frustration for some years among the cohort of MSPs and activists brought in by Davidson at the party’s drift since she stepped down – both practically, with Ross focused on Westminster, and politically, prioritising uncreative opposition to independence over a fuller centre-right policy platform. The potential is there; the 38% of Scots who voted for Brexit, for example, still don’t have a strong voice and are not seeking it in Reform either.
While it’s still unclear whether the membership or party machine agree, there’s much more appetite for this conversation among Holyrood Tories, but “this side of the election it is parked”, says a senior source. Likewise, speculation about potential successors and the mechanics of having leadership elections for the UK and Scottish party running in tandem across the summer should Sunak also resign.
After the shock of the past, most are desperate to pull back to where the party was at the start of June: hoping to keep their distance from Rishi Sunak’s unravelling campaign by focusing on growing voter discontent over the SNP’s record at Holyrood and their unionist base in the north-east and the borders.
