Russell Findlay: I’m in it for the long haul and there’s NO CHANCE I resign on Saturday

After stopping for a quick coffee break in Holyrood in the vibrant Perthshire town of Auchterarder during the final hours of the election campaign, Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay posed for a selfie next to an appropriate sign he came across that read ‘almost there’.

While Scots going to the polls on Thursday will mark the end of a long campaign that appears not to have captured the imagination of many voters, some political commentators have speculated that it could also mark the end of Findlay’s own short reign as leader.

With current polls suggesting the Tories could slip from the SNP’s biggest rival to fourth or even fifth place, some have put him on the waiting list as the front-runner this weekend.

Mr Findlay, however, is having none of it and insists he is not going anywhere regardless of the election outcome.

Kemi Badenoch is leading the charge in Britain after the party’s worst ever general election result in 2024, and some Tory insiders privately acknowledge that a good result in the Holyrood vote could avoid the worst ever result since devolution – just 15 seats under Annabel Goldie in 2011.

But is Mr Findlay still committed to his job, even as the party hits rock bottom? “Yes, completely,” he says.

“There are all kinds of possible outcomes, but having lost the 2024 general election less than a year and a half ago, we for our part cannot assume that the trajectory for us was up from there. We knew there was a lot of work to be done in the long term to rebuild public trust.

Findlay is emphatic that he is not going anywhere regardless of the election outcome

Russell Findlay takes a selfie while campaigning in Auchterarder

‘I’m in it for the long term. I will stay in this job as long as I think, and others think, that I can make a difference.

“I think both Kemi and I have steadied the ship. There were many pundits telling us that the Tories were dead after the general election and there was no point. But I tell you that I speak to both members of the Conservative party and voters who tell us that we have never been more important. I recognize that we have never been more important.

‘You have extremists like the Greens, populists like the SNP and Reform who promise all kinds of things that they can’t deliver, and then we’re in the middle – the credible, centre-right party of ambition, party of hard work, party of personal responsibility.

‘So I’m in it for the long term, Kemi is in it for the long term. These extremists will burn bright and then fade away quite quickly. We can’t leave the field; it’s more important than ever.’

So he’s not going to resign on Saturday morning? “Not a chance,” says Mr. Findlay, his gaze steely.

Across Britain, the Tories have felt the wrath of voters as they produced their worst ever result at the last general election.

A detailed More in Common poll last weekend predicted that the Scottish Tories could fall to as few as 12 seats.

But Findlay, a former investigative journalist who only became an MSP five years ago, shrugs off the level of anxiety the election campaign and dismal polls have caused him.

“I’m not worried, I’m determined,” he says. ‘I’m not worried.

‘As a journalist I took on organized crime gangs not because it was easy to do; it was very difficult and risky. These criminals use high-profile lawyers to destroy stories and they use threats to destroy stories of activity.

“So when I see from polls that it’s hard for us, or when I hear these smug commentators saying we shouldn’t worry about it because we’re not relevant, it just makes me even more determined.”

That low point in 2011 led to the election of a young leader new to politics in the form of Ruth Davidson, who then over time began to turn the party’s fortunes around.

Like the young Ms Davidson 15 years ago, Mr Findlay believes he is only in the early stages of turning around the party’s fortunes. That starts with acknowledging past mistakes.

He said: ‘People all over the UK lost faith in us, we lost our way, we let people down. Unlike the SNP, our party is prepared to raise its hands and admit that. We are honest people, we admit where we go wrong and we will remain remorseful.

‘But people don’t want us to be in constant fear about that. They want to see us doing what we do best, which is representing mainstream Britain.”

He put in the miles in the final week of the campaign. Perthshire on Tuesday, the north-east, southern Scotland and Edinburgh, as he makes a personal plea to potential voters to back the Tories on the list rather than reform.

Mr Findlay believes the SNP were “the original populists” and that Reform is now taking a similar approach to help raise support levels.

He says the reforms have “some extremist views” but highlights the divergent views among senior figures on issues such as the mass deportation of migrants, while there are also mixed messages on independence.

Mr Findlay said: ‘They will say anything. They present themselves as unionist to unionist voters, but there is a nudge and a nod to nationalist voters. That’s what they do: they play a two-faced game.

‘But it’s not just a game, it’s so dangerous. Because the SNP should be watching their ears with this disillusionment in politics, but it looks like they could win a majority, says John Swinney – and that will be helped by Nigel Farage and Lord Offord.

‘We have to stop them. We need to convince sensible Scots. I understand, I understand why you’re angry, I understand why things feel like nothing will change. But we are the party that can stand up to the SNP, we always have been and we will continue to be so. Nigel Farage doesn’t give a damn about the Union or Scotland.’

Claiming that being replaced by Reform as the main opposition would be a ‘nightmare’ because it would ensure the SNP’s victory, he said: ‘What is likely to happen is that this disjointed group of individuals will quickly discover the reality that it is difficult and frustrating to be at Holyrood, and that you cannot wave a magic wand and suddenly it will be fixed.

“I think a lot of them are going to lose interest very quickly because they realize it’s hard, and I think a lot of them are going to have fights with each other – they already do, you see it every day. It’s not serious, it’s people playing politics.”

If the SNP fails to win a majority, Mr Findlay is still concerned about the alternative of an SNP/Green alliance. He said: ‘I remember as a journalist once being sent undercover to buy what appeared to be a snuff film in Glasgow’s Barras Market, and that was even less horrifying than the thought of ‘Bute House 2 – The Return’.’

But what is the alternative, given the concerns about an SNP majority, an SNP/Green alliance and Reform as an opposition? What does he want to happen?

While he insists he will ‘never support an SNP government or an SNP First Minister’, he refuses to speculate on who else he might support in a vote to become the next First Minister.

On whether he would support a Labor prime minister, he said he would not say how he would act depending on the possible outcomes.

He said: ‘I’m here to fight our corner and get as many of us back into Holyrood as possible, and then we’ll make a decision, and then we’ll sit down collectively and look at our numbers and look at the other numbers and have some serious conversations about what that means.

“But we will be no one’s pawns, we will be as strong, resilient and determined as we have been in Holyroood, as we have ever been.”

And what about supporting a reformist Prime Minister? “It seems very, very unlikely,” he said. “I cannot support a party where one, most importantly, is not a Unionist party, despite what they say, and secondly, the intention is to destroy our party.”

But what if the choice is Malcolm Offord or John Swinney? Mr Findlay said: ‘I don’t think that’s at all likely. But again, what we will do is look at the outcome, which obviously still needs to happen, and have these difficult conversations at that time.

“But the most important thing for me, as someone who has suffered and seen the suffering caused by the SNP’s incompetence, waste, inability and failure to deliver, is to get them out.”