Outgoing Tory leader Douglas Ross loses bid for seat

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

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.”