The Scottish Tory leadership race is over— but the headaches are only beginning
27 September 2024, 15:58
It’s like watching bald men fighting over a comb, declared one Holyrood wag to me when the Scottish Conservative leadership election was engulfed in accusations of smear campaigns and bullying.
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Certainly the race to replace Douglas Ross as leader of the Scottish Conservatives had something of a shoulder-shrug about it. The ways the polls stack up at the moment, why would anyone want to compete to lead a party into third place in the next Holyrood elections?
But, compete they did, and ultimately, it was the party’s justice spokesperson, Russell Findlay, who emerged triumphant, resoundingly beating Murdo Fraser and Meghan Gallacher.
Well, as resounding as 2565 from the 4155 votes cast can be.
That is one of the headaches in Findlay’s overflowing in-tray: how to rebuild his party in Scotland. Scottish Conservative membership now stands at just 6941 people - just over ten per cent of the membership of the SNP, and we all remember the hoo-ha there was over the fall in that party’s membership during its own leadership election last year.
Oh, how the Conservatives would love to have the SNP problem of 64,000 members. Indeed more people turn out to watch Dundee Utd every weekend than turn are prepared to become members of the Scottish Conservatives.
Findlay’s opponent Meghan Gallacher said during the campaign, that the party had to have an offer for women and for young people if it is to increase both its membership - and coffers - but also to increase support at the ballot box. Findlay would do well to listen to any ideas she - and others - have if, come the Holyrood election in 2026, he wants to have paid-up activists out delivering whatever message he has drummed up by then.
And that’s not too far away. So working up a new election strategy, one which doesn’t depend on just being anti-independence, is his second headache. The previous strategy served the party well since 2014 in terms of Holyrood elections - the Scottish Conservatives have managed to stay the second largest party in the Scottish Parliament.
But the current weakness in the SNP in the wake of the General Election appears to have parked that issue, however temporarily. John Swinney and his party will be looking to defend 19 years in power, that’s a big domestic record for opposition parties to have a go at, and Findlay will likely be looking closely at how he can weaponise that.
He also has to have an eye on the Reform vote. At the General Election the Conservatives lost out in at least two seats in Scotland, to the SNP, because people voted Reform.
And Nigel Farage’s party has threatened to take the Holyrood elections very seriously. Polling puts them just a percentage point or two behind the Scottish Conservatives.
There’s a hope in Findlay’s circle that the Holyrood election will mean far less of a focus on issues like immigration, but wooing back disgruntled Conservative voters from Reform could prove trickier than they admit. And there’s a resurgent Scottish Labour party to deal with too. All flanks are under attack.
His third headache is one of unity. The leadership contest was bruising at times and now he has to pull his parliamentary party back together. Will we see shadow cabinet posts for Fraser and Gallacher?
What about the other three who had initially thrown their hats in the ring but pulled out, only to back Murdo Fraser? Will Liam Kerr, Brian Whittle and Jamie Greene be ignored or rewarded for the sake of unity?
He’s also got to look at what’s happening to the UK Tory party currently in the midst of its own leadership challenges. Douglas Ross - and indeed Ruth Davidson before him - fell out very publicly with the then UK leader Boris Johnson. Findlay backed Liz Truss to replace him - something he’s apologised for but which will be thrown at him by the SNP and Labour at every opportunity.
So far he’s not said who he will back, but so far more than half of his MSP group at Holyrood are supporting Tom Tugenhadt. If he fails to win, will unity between the UK and Scottish parties be possible, or will that relationship carry on as fractious as ever?
Yes, Russell Findlay has won the leadership, but he could find the chalice that’s been passed from Douglas Ross is very much a poisoned one.
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