Video: The 4 big challenges Russell Findlay faces as the new Scottish Tory leader

Transcript

00:00Hello, I'm Alistair Grant, the political editor of the Scotsman and I'm here at the Radisson

00:06Blue Hotel just off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh where Russell Finlay has just been announced

00:11as the new leader of the Scottish Conservatives. It's quite a resounding victory. He was quite

00:16far ahead of his main rival, Murdo Fraser. But as I see it, there's now four main challenges

00:21that he will face as the new leader of the Scottish Tories. The first is those internal

00:27divisions within the party we've seen over the course of this leadership contest. It's

00:32been quite bitter, there's been a lot of blue on blue attacks, there's been allegations

00:36of briefings behind the scenes. He's going to have to stand up in front of the Tory MSP

00:40group on Tuesday as a new leader and try to bring the party back together, have a message

00:45of unity. I think we probably should expect to see him bringing in perhaps Murdo Fraser,

00:51Meghan Gallacher, maybe both of them, into his top team in Holyrood as part of that message

00:55of unity. I think the second challenge for him is in coming up with a viable electoral

01:00strategy going into the Holyrood election in 2026. He needs to come up with a credible

01:07message to voters, he needs to come up with a strategy that's going to at least retain

01:12the 31 Tory MSPs in Holyrood. I think the third challenge which is linked to that is

01:18to see off the threat posed by Nigel Farage's Reform UK. They polled 7% at the recent general

01:26election in July in Scotland and that was without having any kind of presence north

01:30of the border, without campaigning in Scotland at all. I think there's real concerns within

01:35the Scottish Conservative Party going forward about the threat posed by Reform. You look

01:40at Douglas Ross and his attempt to win that seat in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East

01:44in the general election. He failed to do that partly because Reform UK split the vote.

01:49I think the fourth challenge is to avoid pointless cross-border rows between the Tory parties

01:56in Scotland and the Tory party UK White. We saw under Douglas Ross there was sometimes

02:01tensions north and south of the border. In 2022 Douglas Ross called for Boris Johnson

02:06to go over Partygate. That caused tensions. Jacob Rees-Mogg famously then referred to

02:13Douglas Ross as a lightweight. I think there's no problem with being seen as your own man

02:18or woman but there's obviously a balancing act to be struck there and you don't want

02:22to open up pointless rifts north and south of the border that can then be exploited by

02:27your opponents. So there's big challenges ahead for the new Scottish Tory leader and

02:30I think it will be interesting to see what Russell Findlay does going forward.