Outgoing Tory leader Douglas Ross loses bid for seat
Douglas Ross lost his bid for the Aberdeenshire North and Moray East seat.
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The outgoing leader of the Scottish Tories has lost his bid for a seat at Westminster.
Mr Ross fought the Aberdeenshire North and Moray East constituency in the stead of former MP David Duguid, who was barred from standing by party bosses due to ill health.
The Tory leader was beaten by SNP candidate Seamus Logan, who won 13,455 votes to Mr Ross’s 12,513.
Initially, Mr Ross had intended to stand down from Westminster, but reversed course in the midst of the campaign to take on the seat.
His decision raised the ire of opponents and those within the party, leading to him announcing he will stand down as the party’s leader north of the border.
As a result of losing the seat, Mr Ross will remain a backbench MSP at Holyrood.
It also comes after he said the Conservative Party across the UK had endured a “historically bad” result but he does not regret his last-minute decision to stand.
In a post-result interview with the BBC, Mr Ross blamed the Reform vote for his seat loss but said a drift to the right to tackle this is not “inevitable”.
“The Reform vote was clearly the big factor here with it being the highest Reform vote anywhere in Scotland,” he said.
“It’s been a difficult, difficult night for the entire Conservative Party.”
He added: “I accept my own share of responsibility, both locally and nationally, I’m never going to walk away from that.
“I will carry that burden but we also have to look at how we come back from this as a Conservative Party across the United Kingdom and how we immediately start to challenge this new Government that’s going to be formed by Keir Starmer because, with their majority, they need to be checked by the opposition parties in the House of Commons.”