Exclusive:Senior Scottish Tory brands Douglas Ross decision 'woefully ill-advised' and delivers Reform 'error' message

Murdo Fraser, who is thought to be weighing up entering the Scottish Conservative leadership race, said it would be a "serious error" to not try to reclaim the centre-ground.

It came as he criticised the "woefully ill-advised decision" of Douglas Ross to run in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East which ended in embarrassing defeat for the outgoing Scottish Tory leader.

Writing for The Scotsman, Mr Fraser has stressed that the Tories hemorrhaged votes to Reform at the general election because “many traditional Conservative voters simply wanted to send a message of disappointment and disgust”.

He added: “These voters are won back by rebuilding a reputation for integrity, not tacking to the right.”

Mr Fraser said that the same strategy to not pander to Reform “applies equally, if not more, in Scotland”.

He said: “Here, Reform did not have the same impact as in England, but nevertheless achieved a significant 7 per cent of votes cast, contributing to the Conservatives having our worst-ever vote share in a general election at 12.7 per cent.

“The one seat where the presence of a Reform candidate may have had a significant impact on the outcome was in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, where the 5,562 Reform votes substantially outweighed the 942 majority that SNP candidate Seamus Logan had over the Conservative Douglas Ross.

“Had it not been for the woefully ill-advised decision to replace a respected and hard-working MP in David Duguid, who was suffering from an illness, with the party leader Douglas Ross, it seems likely that the seat would have been a Conservative hold, with the SNP deprived of their one gain on a night which otherwise was truly dismal for the party.”

Mr Fraser said the Scottish Conservatives “can expect Reform to run an energetic campaign to try and achieve a presence in Holyrood for the first time” in the run-up to the 2026 election, adding that “on the basis of the vote share earlier this month, would be achievable”.

He added: “There has always been a small but significant proportion of the Scottish electorate who hold the view that devolution is a mistake, and that Holyrood should be abolished.

“Now, in Reform, they will have a voice, and that presents a real risk to my party, already being squeezed on the other flank as the ‘transactional unionists’, perhaps traditional Labour or Lib Dem voters who started voting Scottish Tory under Ruth Davidson’s leadership, drift back to their former homes.

“It adds up to an existential challenge for the Scottish Conservatives and Unionist Party, with the vote being squeezed on both sides. It would be a serious error, here as south of the Border, to embrace the Reform agenda and become hostile to devolution.

"Holyrood needs reformed, as I have argued before, not closed down. But that will require some sophisticated strategic thinking about how we reposition ourselves.”