Who is within the working for the Scottish Tory management?

Nominations within the contest to seek out the following chief of the Scottish Conservatives have formally opened, after six MSPs launched campaigns.

Party members calling for an open contest to succeed Douglas Ross seem to have gotten their want, with virtually a fifth of get together’s Holyrood group within the working.

Nominations shut on 22 August and the winner, elected by members, is to be introduced on 27 September.

Following final month’s normal election, every of the candidates is pledging to reinvigorate the get together.

While the Scottish Tories didn’t have as unhealthy an evening as many within the get together had feared, shedding only one MP, they received simply 12% of the vote share.

They additionally misplaced deposits in 16 seats the place they gained lower than 5% of ballots – in comparison with none in 2019.

The election additionally proved the undoing of Mr Ross, who will stay in place till a brand new chief is chosen earlier than returning to the backbenches.

The Highlands and Islands MSP confronted an inside revolt over a last-minute resolution to run for Westminster once more, rather than a colleague who had been unwell in hospital.

Candidates to exchange him will want 100 nominations from get together members to get on the poll paper, with the competition performed utilizing a preferential voting system.

The backside ranked candidate shall be eradicated in every spherical, with their first-preference votes redistributed till one candidate receives over 50% of votes solid.

Whoever wins the race might want to cope with a difficult political panorama for Conservatives in Scotland.

They’re nonetheless the second largest get together at Holyrood, however it seems to be like Labour is consuming into their vote, whereas Nigel Farage’s Reform may additionally pose a menace.

Looking forward, the Scottish political battlefield isn’t as fertile for them because it as soon as was.

After heavy SNP loses, it seems like we’ll be listening to much less a few second independence referendum within the close to future.

The Scottish Tories could have opposed independence, however the spectre of one other referendum was a really helpful campaigning instrument for them.

It seems like it is a get together that might want to regulate.

So who has launched a bid? And the place would they take the Scottish Conservatives?

The first candidate to launch their marketing campaign was the get together’s justice spokesperson, Russell Findlay.

A former investigative journalist, he was the get together’s director of communications earlier than changing into an MSP for the West of Scotland in 2021.

Mr Findlay has written books on gangland crime and was the sufferer of an acid assault in 2015, when an assailant appeared at his door disguised as a postman.

After saying his candidacy, he mentioned he had been warned by Police Scotland of a menace to his life from a “known criminal”.

The frontbencher – who had been extensively anticipated to run and was thought of an early favorite – introduced his candidacy earlier than the format of the competition had even been introduced.

He vowed to construct a “positive, modern” Conservative motion in Scotland as he urged the get together to “refocus our efforts from predominantly battling against independence”.

The second candidate to enter the working was ex-Olympian sprinter Brian Whittle.

He mentioned the get together needed to determine the right way to “pick themselves up and prepare for the next race”.

The South Scotland MSP raced on the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul and received the 4 x 400m relay on the European Championships on the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki in 1994.

He mentioned: “My objective for the future of the party is clear – build a party that can win in Scotland.”

Mr Whittle mentioned his candidacy had three “core principles” – schooling, enterprise and empowering folks.

Deputy chief Meghan Gallacher, one other who was extensively tipped to run, was the following candidate to declare.

She has loved a fast political rise after becoming a member of North Lanarkshire Council in 2017 aged 25.

Ms Gallacher was elected an MSP for Central Scotland in 2021. The following yr, she was named deputy to Mr Ross and was entrance and centre of the get together’s opposition to controversial proposals to make it simpler for Scots to alter their authorized intercourse.

The politics graduate could also be dusting off her dissertation, which examined the decline of the Conservative Party in Scotland.

She mentioned the competition was a possibility for a reset and that she wished to construct a “modern, centre-right party”.

Scottish Tory schooling and expertise spokesperson Liam Kerr was the primary in a flurry of candidates to enter the race within the week when nominations open.

The North East MSP and former deputy chief mentioned his technique “would start from the future”, contemplating how the nation ought to look in 15 years’ time.

“Everything we do will work back from that point, creating the kind of Scotland we want to live in – fair, thriving and dynamic,” he said.

Before becoming an MSP in 2016, Mr Kerr was an employment lawyer, though his life could could have taken a different turn had he not turned down a job playing piano in a cruise ship cocktail lounge early in his career.

In recent years he has earned diplomas in piano performance, as well as taking university courses in French, history and meteorology.

Former frontbencher Jamie Greene has vowed to bring a “fresh” approach to the Scottish Conservatives.

Brought up in Greenock, he has represented the West of Scotland region since 2016.

Before politics he worked in media and he is currently the co-convener of Holyrood’s LGBTI+ cross party group.

Considered to be on the left of the party, Mr Greene told BBC Scotland News last year that he was sacked as justice spokesperson by Mr Ross because he backed gender recognition reforms.

After announcing his candidacy, he said political scandals involving the UK Conservative Party had been an “eternal source of frustration” for the Scottish party.

He told BBC Good Morning Scotland he believed the country could have a centre-right government for the first time if he was elected leader.

“The way to achieve that is broad appeal, you cannot do that sitting on the fringes of the political spectrum. Successful political parties get into government by appealing to the widest possible electorate and that’s exactly what I’m offering.”

Veteran MSP Murdo Fraser has also thrown his hat into the ring – and it’s not his first rodeo.

The Mid-Scotland and Fife MSP has been at Holyrood since 2001 and ran to lead his party in 2011, but lost out to Ruth Davidson.

He had a radical platform back then: arguing for the party to change its name and split from the UK Conservatives, but has backed away from that approach this time.

“I want this party to speak with a distinctive Scottish voice, but I won’t be splitting it or setting up a new one,” Mr Fraser said. “My aim is to unite the party, not divide it.”

That has not prevented him from taking a swipe at the UK party, nor the current Scottish leader.

Mr Fraser said the party had been “let down” by Douglas Ross, as well as by Boris Johnson over Partygate, Liz Truss over her disastrous mini-budget and Rishi Sunak at D-Day commemorations.

Borrowing a phrase from Mr Johnson, the seasoned MSP vowed party members would “take back control” underneath his management.