Now more Scottish Tory leadership candidates drop out

Back to Scotland, where the ongoing leadership contest for the next leader is heating up. Nominations for candidates close today, and any potential contender who hasn’t received the backing of 100 members won’t be able to progress to the next round. Frontrunner Russell Findlay hosted his official launch on Monday, and this morning his main rival Murdo Fraser is making his formal bid for the leadership. But in a rather interesting development, a number of MSPs who had initially thrown their hat into the ring have this week dropped out – and jumped ship to Fraser. And then there were three…

On Tuesday, ex-Olympian athlete Brian Whittle announced he had decided not to run and would be endorsing Fraser, who previously stood for the leadership back in 2011 and campaigned to separate the Scottish group from the UK party. And this morning, Liam Kerr and Jamie Greene were spotted in the front row of Fraser’s launch – before they promptly announced they too would be dropping out to endorse their favoured colleague. Mr S would argue it is not perhaps the most surprising union, given just last week the four MSPs clubbed together to release a letter calling for the race to be halted. Before that the group had spent time briefing out statements of positivity, retweeting each others’ leadership bid announcements on Twitter, with Kerr and Fraser even appearing together at a campaign event. Talk about playing the long game, eh?

In fact, Fraser appears to be trying to round up the full set. Making an appeal to his two remaining rivals – former deputy leader of the party Megan Gallacher and justice spokesperson Russell Findlay – the Tory leadership contender proclaimed:

There is far more that unites us than divides us. I have been really taken by Meghan’s pitch, particularly to women and younger voters, and admired her for the strong stance she took, and leadership she showed, against the Gender Reform Act. And I admire Russell for his campaigning on law and order issues, and for the way he has set out new policy ideas in the course of his campaign. We need all these talents – including his – to come together to take our party forward. So come and join me and my team so we can start fighting our real opponents in the SNP and Labour.

It’s quite the pitch. But MSP endorsements don’t particularly count for much during this tournament, as the success of the winner is down to the membership. Yet support doesn’t hurt, and Findlay has the backing of MSPs, an MP and even a Tory peer. With his early entry into the competition, the ex-crime journalist has also had enough time to publicise his campaign rather effectively. So will the current frontrunner be swayed by Fraser’s friendly invite, or will he remain, as he promised on Monday, a ‘fighter‘ til the end? Watch this space…