Douglas Ross reveals confronting his Tory rivals over backstabbing attempts amid 'paranoid' infighting
Douglas Ross has opened up about his frontbench colleagues undermining him and said he would have sacked them if he could have proved any wrongdoing.
Douglas Ross has lifted the lid on his hostile Tory leadership, admitting he confronted colleagues he thought were briefing against him and became "paranoid" about being stabbed in the back.
Speaking at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on Tuesday, the outgoing Scottish Tory leader admitted he "wasn't the best" at managing his team and has acknowledged he "did the leadership too early" as he highlighted the impact on his family life.
Mr Ross insisted he did not plot to escape Holyrood and install Russell Findlay as his replacement, but admitted he still would have been forced from his job after the election even if he hadn't stood for Westminster, due to the party's poor vote share.
He was speaking less than a week after four of his colleagues vying to replace him accused Mr Ross of “disturbing claims”, while, Meghan Gallacher, also in the running to step into his shoes, quit as his deputy.
Reports suggest last summer Mr Ross met with Westminster candidate Kathleen Robertson to ask of she would step aside for him, which would have seen him quit as leader and Mr Findlay replace him.
The Scottish Tory leader acknowledged the row was “not the finest hour for the Scottish Conservatives”. But he washed his hands of any allegations his colleagues have thrown at him.
Mr Ross said if he was at the centre of a plot, “I would have become the candidate”. He added: “It was just a general conversation in my house about her thoughts on going for Westminster.
“She decided she wanted to continue being the candidate and since then, I have supported her as much as I could. If there had been anything underhand, I would have continued to chip away at that. I didn’t - I stood back.”
Mr Ross suggested that if Ms Robertson had decided not to proceed with her Westminster bid and “if I became the candidate”, last summer there would have been “an opportunity to have a leadership election”, but contested allegations he wanted to install Mr Findlay as his replacement.
He insisted: “I have remained absolutely neutral and I think that’s important.”
Mr Ross, who will sit as a Conservative backbencher once his replacement is announced next month, said he has not “taken any decision” on whether to seek re-election to Holyrood in 2026.
Mr Ross opened up about some of his frontbenchers he was adamant were trying to undermine and stab him in the back, jokingly branding them as “calculating b******s”.
He said: “There are a small group, and it’s pretty obvious to me if you look at the language and you look where it’s reported and who said what. You put that to people and they will claim innocence and that it’s not true.”
Mr Ross said the infighting and attempts to undermine him “has happened at the most difficult of moments”, warning “people make it even worse”.
The Tory leader said he knows which colleagues were briefing against him. He said: “Some of these people will continue to deny it until their dying breath.”
Asked if he’s ever “had it out with anybody face-to-face”, Mr Ross said: “Yes, and I’ve been told that I’ve got it simply wrong and people advising me are the ones that did this.”
He starkly told the audience that if he could have proven his colleagues had been undermining him, he would have sacked them, but was unable to.
Mr Ross said: “There’s not an awful lot a leader can do if people are briefing against them and there’s no way of proving it. If I could have proved what I know happened, then people would have been sacked. But ultimately they were well-defended.”
He added: “If you speak to some of my close colleagues, they will say at times I was a bit paranoid about things and things I was worried about didn’t materialise.”
Mr Ross admitted he would “accept I wasn’t the best” at managing his group of MSPs. He pointed to his “hands-off approach” to leadership that “clearly some people didn’t like”.
Mr Ross said “some people wanted almost constant contact with the leader” and he “tried to do a bit more engagement”. But the outgoing party leader added: “Probably my management of the group, because of the way I am personally, was not as good as it could have been.
“That’s why people were clearly unhappy and would go out and brief against me. I’ve known, since I became leader, that some people didn’t want me to be leader years ago. Throughout that time, people have continued to hold a view and for some of them, that view will have strengthened.”
Mr Ross said he would “accept I’ve made several mistakes”, but was adamant he “achieved a lot” during his leadership. He told the event his biggest personal mistake was attempting to return to Westminster by controversially replacing David Duguid, but only because he lost.
The Tory leader also said he would have been forced out following the election, even if he hadn’t tried to return to Westminster.
He said: “If I’d known I wasn’t going to win the seat [Aberdeenshire North and Moray East], then I wouldn’t have gone forward with that seat.
“Even if I hadn’t of gone for that seat as the candidate, I think would have been in the exact same situation. I would no longer have been an MP, I would still have been an MSP and we would still have had roughly the same vote share across the country; therefore there would have been calls – which I would have accepted – for me to stand down.
“So yes, there is personal and reputational damage, people speaking about me and making comments, some of which are legitimate, others I think are wrong. But I don’t think the final outcome would have been any different.”
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