Russell Findlay's 'Reform-lite' approach is not working and he faces massive task at Tory Party conference

The UK Conservative Party conference gets underway today and runs until Wednesday - but are four days enough to turn the party’s fortunes around?

I imagine a good chunk of Mr Findlay’s time at conference will be focused on the 2026 Holyrood election and the need to get the entire UK party behind him.

It is an unenviable task. In the most recent Holyrood polls, the Scottish Conservatives are predicted to fall from being the official opposition in Holyrood to fourth place.

Polls from last month put the SNP out in front on 62 seats with Scottish Labour in second with 19 seats. However, surveys have suggested Nigel Farage’s Reform UK would come third with 17 seats, leaving the Conservatives languishing behind on just 11.

It is a far cry from the 31 seats they won in 2021.

The picture is just as bleak when looking at the Westminster polls. Reform UK are surging ahead on 30 per cent, with Labour second on 20 per cent. The UK Conservatives and leader Kemi Badenoch are behind on 16 per cent, only one percentage point ahead of the Lib Dems.

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It has not been an easy 12 months for Mr Findlay since he was elected Scottish Conservative leader in September last year.

He has overseen three defections - his leadership rival Jamie Greene defected to the Scottish Lib Dems earlier this year and over the summer Graham Simpson MSP left for Reform UK. Jeremy Balfour also departed to sit as an independent.

The Conservatives I have spoken to are keen to paint this as a positive - yes the circle is smaller, but it is a more loyal circle as the troublemakers who were a thorn in Mr Findlay’s side are gone.

But Mr Findlay’s tactics do not seem to be cutting through at the moment. Let’s just take this week’s First Minister’s Questions - the majority of the newspaper coverage focused on the exchange between John Swinney and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, with Mr Findlay’s contributions completely sidelined. In the past few weeks, his predecessor Douglas Ross has dominated the headlines for the Tories.

His ‘Reform Lite’ approach to leadership is not working. Rather than convincing those on the right the Conservatives are still the party to back, Mr Findlay is haemorrhaging MSPs and voters.

Mr Findlay’s other tactic is to paint his party as the alternative to the Holyrood bubble. This works fine for him as an individual, as he has had a long career in journalism and was only elected in 2021. But it does not wash when he tries to apply it to his party as a whole, some of whom have been parliamentarians since 2001.

This weekend is an opportunity for Mr Findlay to turn this all around. The election may only be seven months away, but that is still enough time for him to make a difference (it only took seven months for Labour to squander their massive majority and fall behind Reform UK in the opinion polls).

Mr Findlay needs to set out how he will convince Scottish voters to back him at the polls, and convince them to like the UK-wide party and Ms Badenoch a bit more as well.

Ultimately, he should not follow Sir Keir Starmer’s lead of turning the party conference into an anti-Reform conference. He needs to make his own headlines and come up with a better strategy than “we are not Nigel Farage”.