The Conservative Party is ‘here to stay’ but its current decline is set to continue, its Scottish leader has claimed.
Russell Findlay warned that he expects the Tories will ‘go backwards before we can go forwards again’ following the dire results in last year’s general election and this year’s local elections.
He acknowledged the danger that the party could be stuck in opposition across the UK for a decade but denied that would be an existential threat, saying the Tories are ‘here to stay’.
He also said he has ‘no interest’ in seeing the party work with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK at Holyrood or Westminster – and claimed that those defecting are ’shamelessly opportunistic and simply looking after their own short-term interests’.
Speaking to the Mail ahead of addressing the Conservative conference in Manchester on Sunday, Mr Findlay bluntly warned that the party has not yet hit rock bottom.
Asked if he is in it for the long run as leader or would stand down if the party goes backwards in next year’s election, he said: ‘I’m determined to do my very best in this job. I can’t begin to speculate what the future holds. I’m committed to doing the job for as long as I believe I can make the difference.
‘It might be that post general election we are going to go backwards before we can go forwards again. We’ve got great difficulties, nobody is pretending that we do not have massive problems right now both in Scotland and across the United Kingdom.’
Russell Findlay has warned that he expects his party The Scottish Conservatives will ‘go backwards before we can go forwards again’
Mr Findlay said he has ‘no interest’ in seeing the party work with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK
Mr Findlay said MSP Graham Simpson who defected from the Tories to Reform UK had been voted in because he was on the Scottish Conservatives list of candidates
He said the party was previously written off in Scotland when it only had one MP but managed to bounce back and can do so again.
On whether people in the UK party need to now accept they are facing a decade out of power, he said politics is ‘cyclical’ and highlighted ‘forced outwith our control’ from the US which is causing political ‘turbulence’ here.
He insisted that there will be ‘better days ahead’ after the current turbulence and denied there is an existential threat to the party if it is in opposition for a decade or more, saying: ‘I don’t think so. I think inevitably a lot of our opponents are using some quite extreme language. We are here to stay. We have never been more important than we are now.’
A long line of opinion polls indicate the Tories are on course for major losses of seats in next year’s Holyrood election, while Reform is battling Labour for second place.
Mr Findlay said Reform is not a conservative party or a unionist party, and claimed people are ‘playing with fire’ to think they are the answer.
On the prospect of working with Reform, he said: ‘I’ve got no interest in working with a party whose leader’s stated aim is the destruction of the Conservative Party, Kemi has also made that quite, quite clear. I’ve got no interest in that whatsoever.’
Asked if he would support John Swinney leading an SNP minority government above working with Reform, he said: ‘I would do nothing whatsoever to put John Swinney back into Bute House, or to put it another way I will do everything possible to remove John Swinney from Bute House.’
Several MSPs have already deserted the Tories ahead of the election, with Graham Simpson becoming Reform’s first MSP in the current parliament, while Jamie Greene has switched to the Liberal Democrats and Jeremy Balfour is now sitting as an independent. There has also been a wave of councillors switching to Mr Farage’s party.
Hitting out at the defectors, Mr Findlay said: ‘Anyone can see that many of them are shamelessly opportunistic and simply looking after their own short-term interests.
‘Anyone that has been voted into office as a Conservative should recognise that it was Conservative voters that put them there. To suddenly jump ship is disloyal and inexcusable.’
He said there have been reports that Mr Greene’s local association ‘were not entirely impressed with his work ethic’, while Mr Simpson ‘might like to think the voters voted for him for his sparkling personality and immense intellect but it wasn’t for that, it was for the fact he was on the Scottish Conservative list of candidates’.
He added: ‘Who knows if they would have come back (as Tory candidates) or not, nobody knows and that will be decided on May 7, 2026. But it does seem to me that they’ve decided that they’ve got a better chance elsewhere, and it does beg the question primarily about loyalty, which I think is of fundamental importance.’
Responding to the comments, Mr Simpson said: ‘I am looking forward to engaging in a positive campaign next year and wish all my former party colleagues the very best of luck.’
Mr Greene said: ‘On current polling, Russell Findlay looks set to lose his own seat in Holyrood, so it’s no surprise he’s gone into panic mode and is attacking fellow MSPs instead.
‘If Mr Findlay hadn’t lurched his party into a Reform-lite, climate change denying, right-wing mess then maybe I and other “one nation conservatives” wouldn’t have left in the first place.’
