Douglas Ross: ‘The Scottish Tories could have a really good general election’

The SNP wasn’t the only loser last week when Labour triumphed in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election with a 20 per cent swing – the Scottish Conservatives also had reason to feel short-changed. Their vote collapse was so dire that Tory candidate Thomas Kerr only won 3.9 per cent and lost his £500 deposit. While the party insists that the Rutherglen result is not representative of Scotland more generally, it shows the tricky terrain the Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross faces.

‘You’re going to see Conservative gains at the next general election,’ he insists, when we met in Manchester at the Conservative Party Conference. Sheltering from the rain in a fringe event tent, Ross explains why an SNP implosion could work in his party’s favour. ‘The most recent poll showed us picking up a couple of seats in Scotland and I think that’s not what people are expecting at the moment,’ he says. ‘I think we could have a really good general election.’

Is his confidence misplaced? Polling this year has placed Ross as the least popular Scottish party leader and the Scottish Tories are still in third place, behind Labour and the SNP. Labour’s victory last week in the Rutherglen and Hamilton by-election is adding to the sense that Anas Sarwar’s party could clean up at the next election and become the largest party north of the border. But Ross thinks it is too early to write the Scottish nationalists off. ‘The SNP are down but they’re not out,’ he warns, pointing to the importance of the constitutional question in Scottish politics. Voters, he says, don’t think the Scottish government is performing well but ‘they still want independence and they will continue to support the SNP as a result of that’. Campaigning for independence is, Ross believes, ‘totally the wrong priority at the worst possible time’. 

The Tory leader is also an assistant referee in top-flight Scottish football who has learned how to deal with criticism after facing off frustrated Celtic fans on a number of occasions. A dairy farmer by trade, the cheesy taste doesn’t stop there: Ross is an unlikely Atomic Kitten superfan, describing their withdrawal from his local ‘MacMoray’ music festival in Elgin as ‘the most disappointing announcement that I’ve heard’. And, as well as being the MSP for the Highlands and Islands, he also holds a Westminster seat for Moray – coming under criticism after an investigation revealed Ross worked the most ‘second job’ hours of any MP. He will not be standing at the next general election and First Minister Humza Yousaf is already eyeing up his seat. Ross won it from the SNP’s Westminster group leader Angus Robertson in 2017 – but achieving a majority of only 513 at the last election, it’s up for grabs. Far from being worried however, Ross appeared upbeat about his party’s chances in the wake of the SNP’s implosion.

So what should the Scottish Conservative vision be? So far, Ross has earned a reputation for regularly putting out a different message to that coming from Conservative Campaign Headquarters in Westminster. To some it’s strategic bravery but to critics it’s evidence of his tendency to ‘flip flop’ over decisions. Ross resigned from government after Boris Johnson’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings was found to have journeyed from London to Durham during the initial lockdown. He then condemned Johnson after revelations about Partygate made it into the papers, saying the former prime minister’s position was ‘untenable’ and calling for his resignation. But only a month later, Ross changed his mind, withdrawing his letter demanding a confidence vote. The Scottish Tory leader was slammed for backing Truss’s mini-Budget, before admitting that the ‘optics’ of the chaos surrounding Liz Truss’ government were ‘awful’. Earlier this year, Ross was criticised for not whipping his MPs to support the findings of the Privileges Committee into partygate. Does he regret any of these decisions? ‘No,’ Ross answers instantly, describing how his stance on Johnson changed due to the Ukraine war. Does he still have serious concerns about Boris Johnson? ‘Oh, absolutely,’ he replied, without skipping a beat. 

Is he worried about Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, too? The Tory conference took place only months after Sunak made headlines in the Scottish press for failing to name even four members of the Holyrood Tory shadow cabinet. Ross brushes it off: ‘I could be asked to name five junior ministers who are colleagues of mine – and I probably couldn’t name five.’ And what about relations with No. 10? Does the Scottish Tory leader find that they can be fraught given Ross is often inclined to go his own way with his party, who are less on the political right than their UK party colleagues? ‘We’ve always been a unique political party,’ says Ross, pointing to variation between the Scottish and UK Tory manifestos. ‘At times we do things differently in Scotland because of our geography, because of our demographics. And it’s right that we have the autonomy to do that.’ 

But Ross rules out the idea of breaking away entirely from the UK Conservatives. ‘That has been put to our members,’ he says of Tory MSP Murdo Fraser’s failed leadership bid in 2011, who proposed to disband the Scottish Tories and establish a new centre-right party. Fraser did have the support of a large proportion of the MSP group at the time but came a close second to Ruth Davidson, who won by just over 500 votes. Ross uses Fraser’s failed bid to evidence how splitting the parties would be unpopular — despite the vote being held over a decade ago. ‘That’s still the feeling of the vast majority of people in the Scottish Conservatives.’ Even after the last year of sleaze allegations and the Partygate scandal? ‘Yes.’ 

It remains to be seen what Ross plans to do to improve his party’s fortunes. There are grumbles of discontent coming from his own MSPs about the current state of the party, and Ross’s recent reshuffle hasn’t helped matters. Jamie Greene MSP was demoted before the summer recess and had suggested that his sacking was linked to his voting in favour of the SNP’s controversial gender bill. A party source described it as a ‘rudimentary’ ploy to get rid of a leadership rival. Defending his decision, Ross says: ‘We can’t just keep with the same people in the same positions for the entire parliamentary term’. Would he apply the same approach to the leadership – and let a colleague have a turn? ‘No, I’m very happy leading the Scottish Conservatives,’ he replied.

But Ross’s MSPs are beginning to get restless. While more contained than the UK party’s infighting, figures within the party have warned it is facing ‘death by a thousand cuts’ under his leadership. Maurice Golden MSP criticised his party’s ‘slump in the polls’ as being ‘clearly unacceptable’ and has more recently spoken out against Sunak’s ‘deeply disappointing’ net zero u-turns before voting against his party on their adjusted climate change stance. Ross has not spoken to Golden since he made his comments and pointed to technicalities that would prevent him disciplining his MSP: ‘You can discipline someone if they hold a position because you can take them out of that role that they have. Maurice doesn’t hold a position within the group at Holyrood. He’s a busy MSP in the north east of Scotland, but he doesn’t actually have a position that he can be removed from.’

The year ahead will be a tough one for the Scottish Tories, despite Ross’s unwaveringly positive outlook. For Ross to make the Tory gains he’s promising at the next election, he’s facing a fight on two fronts: to convince the conservative parts of the SNP movement that the Tories are best placed to protect social values and rural jobs – while battling against Labour to defend the Conservatives’ position as the party of the Union in Scotland. The 2024 general election is only the first hurdle before the Scottish parliament elections take place two years later. With all that he has to contend with, it would be easy to forgive Ross for wanting to pack it all in and return to dairy farming in Moray. So does he see himself remaining at the top, leading the Scottish Tories into the 2026 Holyrood election? He doesn’t hesitate: ‘Yes. Absolutely.’