Murdo Fraser’s leadership bid has been branded ‘amateur’ and ‘Fraser’s folly’ by one of his most prominent former supporters.
Businessman Robert Kilgour, who bankrolled the Mid Scotland and Fife MSP’s last effort to become Scottish Conservative leader 13 years ago, launched a strongly-worded attack on how his ‘cabal’ attempted to force him on the membership unopposed.
It comes after new details emerged over the weekend of how a group of up to 10 parliamentarians who are disgruntled with the current leadership engaged in talks over the last month about who should be the next leader – with frontrunner Russell Findlay excluded from the discussions.
Leadership candidates Russell Findlay (left,) Meghan Gallacher and Murdo Fraser
Three MSPs who had put themselves as candidates – Jamie Greene, Brian Whittle and Liam Kerr – all dropped out of the race last week to back Mr Fraser, who then used his leadership launch to make an extraordinary bid to secure the top job in a coronation.
Mr Kilgour, who previously invested a four-figure sum in Mr Fraser’s doomed 2011 bid to defeat Ruth Davidson, when he had proposed rebranding the Scottish Conservatives as a new centre-right party, said:
Businessman Robert Kilgour
‘Speaking as someone who had actively backed and strongly supported Murdo Fraser’s bid for Scottish Conservative Party leader back in 2011, I watched the frankly, at times, farcical press launch of his leadership bid recently with a mixture of shock, disbelief, genuine sadness and disappointment.
‘This supposedly key political event could accurately be described as “Fraser’s Folly” – very amateur and sadly, largely taken straight out of the student political campaign handbook but so deeply flawed as a grown up strategy for such an important election at such a key time.’
Mr Kilgour, a care home entrepreneur, is a long-standing Conservative donor and a former Scottish Conservative constituency chairman.
He said: ‘All the behind the scenes amateur shenanigans leading up to the press conference were SNP-like – plus the absurd call for all the other remaining candidates to stand down and let Murdo be ‘crowned’ without a membership vote.’
Following the backlash at his proposal to be handed the top job without a contest, Mr Fraser attempted to backtrack during a Scottish Conservative hustings event on Saturday, when he told members he was ‘just being cheeky’.
Asked by members at the Glynhill Hotel in Renfrew whether he would take back calls for other candidates to stand aside, Mr Fraser said: ‘I was being a wee bit cheeky, I was being a wee bit cheeky, right?’
However, he then added: ‘But behind it, there are a couple of serious points. The first is, we’re going back Holyrood a week on Monday.
‘For four weeks, Douglas Ross is going to be our leader on the front bench. That’s going to be a bit awkward… a bit awkward for him, a bit awkward for us, so short circuiting that might be helpful.
‘The other issue is, we’ve only got 20 months until the Holyrood election. We can spend the next five weeks fighting each other, or we can get on with fighting the opposition.
‘But listen, I’m really happy about having a contest, right? I’m delighted to be here.’
Responding to the comments, Mr Kilgour, who is backing Mr Findlay to be the next leader, said: ‘He has now rowed back but who is he kidding?
He is insulting our intelligence by saying “I was just being cheeky”. ‘Next time will he be saying “he’s behind you”? Is he auditioning for a future as a panto dame?
Sadly for me as a long-time supporter of Murdo, you just could not make it up.’
When asked whether he would keep donating to the party if Mr Fraser wins, Mr Kilgour said: ‘I have almost always donated to the UK party to date, very little direct to the Scottish party, but everything is currently off the table awaiting the results from both elections and then I will decide what to do going forward.’
