Who is in the running for the Scottish Tory leadership?

Nominations in the contest to find the next leader of the Scottish Conservatives have officially opened, after six MSPs launched campaigns.

Party members calling for an open contest to succeed Douglas Ross appear to have got their wish, with almost a fifth of party’s Holyrood group in the running.

Nominations close on 22 August and the winner, elected by members, is to be announced on 27 September.

Following last month’s general election, each of the candidates is pledging to reinvigorate the party.

While the Scottish Tories did not have as bad a night as many in the party had feared, losing just one MP, they won just 12% of the vote share.

They also lost deposits in 16 seats where they gained less than 5% of ballots – compared to none in 2019.

The election also proved the undoing of Mr Ross, who will remain in place until a new leader is chosen before returning to the backbenches.

The Highlands and Islands MSP faced an internal revolt over a last-minute decision to run for Westminster again, in place of a colleague who had been ill in hospital.

Candidates to replace him will need 100 nominations from party members to get on the ballot paper, with the contest conducted using a preferential voting system.

The bottom ranked candidate will be eliminated in each round, with their first-preference votes redistributed until one candidate receives over 50% of votes cast.

Whoever wins the race will need to contend with a challenging political landscape for Conservatives in Scotland.

They’re still the second largest party at Holyrood, but it looks like Labour is eating into their vote, while Nigel Farage’s Reform could also pose a threat.

Looking ahead, the Scottish political battlefield isn’t as fertile for them as it once was.

After heavy SNP loses, it feels like we’ll be hearing less about a second independence referendum in the near future.

The Scottish Tories may have opposed independence, but the spectre of another referendum was a very useful campaigning tool for them.

It feels like this is a party that will need to adjust.

So who has launched a bid? And where would they take the Scottish Conservatives?

The first candidate to launch their campaign was the party’s justice spokesperson, Russell Findlay.

A former investigative journalist, he was the party’s director of communications before becoming an MSP for the West of Scotland in 2021.

Mr Findlay has written books on gangland crime and was the victim of an acid attack in 2015, when an assailant appeared at his door disguised as a postman.

After announcing his candidacy, he said he had been warned by Police Scotland of a threat to his life from a “known criminal”.

The frontbencher – who had been widely expected to run and was considered an early favourite – announced his candidacy before the format of the contest had even been announced.

He vowed to build a “positive, modern” Conservative movement in Scotland as he urged the party to “refocus our efforts from predominantly battling against independence”.

The second candidate to enter the running was ex-Olympian sprinter Brian Whittle.

He said the party had to decide how to “pick themselves up and prepare for the next race”.

The South Scotland MSP raced at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul and won the 4 x 400m relay at the European Championships at the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki in 1994.

He said: “My objective for the future of the party is clear – build a party that can win in Scotland.”

Mr Whittle said his candidacy had three “core principles” – education, enterprise and empowering people.

Deputy leader Meghan Gallacher, another who was widely tipped to run, was the next candidate to declare.

She has enjoyed a rapid political rise after joining North Lanarkshire Council in 2017 aged 25.

Ms Gallacher was elected an MSP for Central Scotland in 2021. The following year, she was named deputy to Mr Ross and was front and centre of the party’s opposition to controversial proposals to make it easier for Scots to change their legal sex.

The politics graduate may be dusting off her dissertation, which examined the decline of the Conservative Party in Scotland.

She said the contest was an opportunity for a reset and that she wanted to build a “modern, centre-right party”.

Scottish Tory education and skills spokesperson Liam Kerr was the first in a flurry of candidates to enter the race in the week when nominations open.

The North East MSP and former deputy leader said his strategy “would start from the future”, considering how the country should look in 15 years’ time.

“Everything we do will work back from that point, creating the kind of Scotland we want to live in – fair, thriving and dynamic,” he said.

Before becoming an MSP in 2016, Mr Kerr was an employment lawyer, though his life could could have taken a different turn had he not turned down a job playing piano in a cruise ship cocktail lounge early in his career.

In recent years he has earned diplomas in piano performance, as well as taking university courses in French, history and meteorology.

Former frontbencher Jamie Greene has vowed to bring a “fresh” approach to the Scottish Conservatives.

Brought up in Greenock, he has represented the West of Scotland region since 2016.

Before politics he worked in media and he is currently the co-convener of Holyrood’s LGBTI+ cross party group.

Considered to be on the left of the party, Mr Greene told BBC Scotland News last year that he was sacked as justice spokesperson by Mr Ross because he backed gender recognition reforms.

After announcing his candidacy, he said political scandals involving the UK Conservative Party had been an “eternal source of frustration” for the Scottish party.

He told BBC Good Morning Scotland he believed the country could have a centre-right government for the first time if he was elected leader.

“The way to achieve that is broad appeal, you cannot do that sitting on the fringes of the political spectrum. Successful political parties get into government by appealing to the widest possible electorate and that’s exactly what I’m offering.”

Veteran MSP Murdo Fraser has also thrown his hat into the ring – and it’s not his first rodeo.

The Mid-Scotland and Fife MSP has been at Holyrood since 2001 and ran to lead his party in 2011, but lost out to Ruth Davidson.

He had a radical platform back then: arguing for the party to change its name and split from the UK Conservatives, but has backed away from that approach this time.

“I want this party to speak with a distinctive Scottish voice, but I won’t be splitting it or setting up a new one,” Mr Fraser said. “My aim is to unite the party, not divide it.”

That has not prevented him from taking a swipe at the UK party, nor the current Scottish leader.

Mr Fraser said the party had been “let down” by Douglas Ross, as well as by Boris Johnson over Partygate, Liz Truss over her disastrous mini-budget and Rishi Sunak at D-Day commemorations.

Borrowing a phrase from Mr Johnson, the seasoned MSP vowed party members would “take back control” under his leadership.