Scottish Tories plan for Davidson to hold the line for Douglas Ross at Holyrood

Douglas Ross, the MP for Moray, is the front-runner to replace Jackson Carlaw as leader of the Scottish Conservatives. He is set to launch his official campaign tomorrow, and has the support of former leader Ruth Davidson and much of the Conservative establishment.

Reaction understands that Carlaw  was pressured to step down by senior colleagues after polling showed there was a majority for independence and over 50% support for the SNP ahead of next year’s Holyrood elections.

In a statement, Carlaw said: “Nothing is more important to me than making the case for Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom… In the last few weeks, I have reached the simple if painful conclusion that I am not, in the present circumstances, the person best placed to lead that case over these next vital months in Scottish politics.”

The favourite to succeed Carlaw is Douglas Ross, a former professional football referee whose House of Commons performances have impressed observers over the last couple of years.

His intervention on the Internal Market Bill a fortnight ago, in which he derided the SNP’s claims of a Westminster power grab, was particularly notable.

In a challenge to the nationalist, he said: “I am going to give way to the honourable Member for Sterling, because he will be the first SNP member ever who is able to describe a power held by Holyrood that the UK government is going to grab away from them. I look forward to that”. They appeared stumped.

Two months ago, Ross resigned from Boris Johnson’s government over Dominic Cummings’s eye-testing trip to Barnard Castle. “I have constituents who didn’t get to say goodbye to loved ones; families who could not mourn together… because they followed the guidance of the government,” he said.

The move was hardly noticed in Westminster at the time, and certainly not heeded by Downing Street, but if Ross becomes leader of the Scottish Conservatives it will lend credence to his claims to be independent from the Westminster leadership.

This swift transfer of power will come with one major difficulty, however: Ross doesn’t have a seat in Holyrood, and will likely have to wait until the 2021 election to enter the chamber. He will therefore need a stand-in to hold the line in First Minister’s Questions for just under a year.

Ruth Davidson, already a household name, is the obvious candidate for such a role. She is rumoured to have already agreed to do it, making her the face of the party in Holyrood as they head into next year’s elections and allowing Ross to focus on campaigning in marginal areas.

Davidson is also said to be in line for nomination for a peerage in the coming days. This would not prevent her from continuing as an MSP, as dual mandates are permitted in devolved parliaments. Indeed, it could even be beneficial to show that Scottish politicians can have a legislative seat on both sides of the border.

There could also be a challenge to Richard Leonard, the Scottish Labour leader, who is already being pressured to follow Carlaw’s lead and resign for the sake of Unionism. George Foulkes, a former Labour MP and MSP, has urged Leonard to “think of what is best for the party in terms of the Holyrood elections.”

Foulkes added: “Tony Blair has sent a coded message to him and he needs to think carefully about it.” Blair had made comments about the contrast between Sir Keir Starmer’s support in England and Leonard’s in Scotland.

Given that a large proportion of SNP voters can only be won from a left-wing perspective – especially if the next election is to be about healthcare and education – the strength of the Labour leadership is a matter of significance for all unionists, including the government in Westminster.

Unionists in both main parties, desperate to obstruct Nicola Sturgeon’s trajectory, appear to have recognised that the younger, more zealous generation should take the mantle. Douglas Ross, aged 37, could soon be either a renowned figure in national politics, or blamed for an SNP majority.