Jamie Greene becomes fifth Tory leadership contender with 'radical shake-up' vow

Mr Greene has been regarded as outspoken and highly-critical of Douglas Ross’s tenure as leader.

The MSP lost his frontbench position as the party’s justice spokesperson after voting in favour of the gender recognition reforms, insisting his stance had not changed since the Tories supported the policy under former party leader Ruth Davidson. He has also held the education, digital skills and transport briefs at Holyrood.

Mr Greene’s leadership pitch is aimed at the Tories winning over the “next generation” of Scottish voters, having struggled to do so under Mr Ross. He has pledged plans for a “radical shake-up” of how the Conservatives do business in Holyrood.

Central to Mr Greene’s pitch is a belief the Scottish Parliament needs an overhaul of its processes and scrutiny, as well as vowing to rebuild the Scottish Conservative party as a better managed and member-led organisation, with a strategy he claims can take his party into power at Holyrood.

Mr Greene has outlined plans to create entrepreneurship opportunities for young Scots, a “start-up revolution” and a supercharging of Scotland’s digital skills drive. He said that after 25 years of devolution, “Holyrood has let down a generation of young Scots”.

“The Scottish Conservatives have been a drifting ship surviving political storms, but I’ve had enough of the language of defeat,” he said.

“I want to fix politics, fix our party and fix Scotland. That means a radical shake-up of how we do things in Holyrood and a change in leadership style. The public are scunnered by politics and the endless, pointless grievance mongering. They want to see their parliament deliver meaningful change, and that means we need adults in the room in charge.”

Mr Greene insisted “the country needs a common sense, centre-right party, which the next generation of voters will trust, a party with a viable and honest path to power”.

He said: “That’s why my campaign will focus on how we attract people who have never considered voting Conservative before, but who are drawn to our common-sense ideas.”