Russell Findlay, the newly elected leader of the Scottish Conservatives, has said his party faces a significant threat from Reform in Scotland.
Findlay said the Scottish Tories had to listen to the tens of thousands of Tory voters who defected to Reform UK at the general election if his beleaguered party is to successfully mount a revival.
“We are acutely conscious of their vote share in the general election and, as leader, it’s our job to reconnect with those people who feel, frankly, scunnered by a lot of politicians, and persuade them that what we stand for represents their interests,” Findlay said after being announced as leader in Edinburgh.
A former crime reporter who entered the Scottish parliament three years ago, Findlay comfortably won the bitterly fought contest to replace Douglas Ross as leader by taking 61.7% of the first preference votes.
Of the 4,155 Scottish Tory members who voted, 2,565 backed Findlay in the first round, with 1,187 votes going to his closest rival, Murdo Fraser, and 403 to Meghan Gallacher, a former deputy leader of the Scottish party.
The contest was the most divisive in the party’s recent history, marred by vicious briefing and counter-briefing by rival camps, a feud involving Gallacher and John Lamont, the shadow Scottish secretary, and revelations Ross had sought to impose Findlay as his successor last year.
It was triggered by a party rebellion against Ross after he forced out the popular candidate David Duguid, who was then convalescing after a serious injury, as the Scottish Tory nominee for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East and installed himself in his place.
At the election Ross became the only Scottish Tory to lose a Westminster seat that the party was defending after a surge in support for Reform UK. Reform won 5,562 votes, well above Ross’s margin of defeat of 942 votes to the Scottish National party candidate.
Across Scotland, Reform won 7% of the votes at the general election – a result that suggests it could successfully win Holyrood seats in May 2026, most likely by taking them from the Conservatives.
The Tories are currently the second-largest party at Holyrood with 31 seats, but at the general election they won only 12.7% of the vote, dropping 12.4 points since the 2019 election.
Findlay has a tricky balancing act in trying to win back Reform voters while also keeping the Scottish Tories as a centre-right party able to appeal to floating, pro-union voters, many of whom voted Labour at the general election. His leadership bid was backed by the former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson, who said Findlay was best placed to maintain the one-nation Tory agenda she successfully engineered.
Speaking to reporters after his election, Findlay confirmed he would try to maintain that centre-right stance even if it led to conflict with the UK party and its next leader. He said that unlike Davidson he preferred to keep policy disputes with the UK party private, but confirmed that he disagreed with the UK party leadership candidates such as Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugendhat who want the UK to quit the European convention on human rghts.
Fraser, who last stood for the leadership against Davidson in 2011, promised to unite behind Findlay but said the party’s “first challenge” was working out why it was losing votes to Reform. “I think we will get them back not by chasing Nigel Farage’s agenda, but by looking at people who are disappointed with Conservatives who feel we’ve let them down,” he said.
