More Tory MSPs will leave the party, predicts Jamie Greene

Jamie Greene, the former Tory MSP who defected to the Liberal Democrats last week, has said he expects more colleagues to follow his lead.

Writing in The Guardian, the MSP hit out at the Conservatives’ choice to “slip right” and said many others within the party were “no longer comfortable”.

Greene was elected as a West Scotland MSP in 2016, when the party was under the leadership of Ruth Davidson, but last week took the decision to quit and cross the aisle.

He said the Lib Dems’ values “fall better in line with what Davidson sought to achieve with her version of the Tories: fiscally responsible but socially liberal”.

He continued: “The centre is where most voters are at; it’s where I am at and – judging by the messages I’ve had these past few days – it’s where most decent Tories are at. Perhaps they just need a new home too?

“I may have been the first MSP to leave the Tories in Scotland in this parliamentary session, but I’d be amazed if I am the last.”

Greene also revealed some of the abuse he had received from Conservative members since his announcement, including being told he had “perverse views”, would “feel at home with gender extremists”, and having Bible verses about Judas being quoted at him.

And he also said the “tolerance and acceptance” he found in the party when he first joined had been replaced by the  “old-fashioned ‘nasty party’ of 1980s politics”, a shift he said he had “been on the receiving end of… for some time”.

Others in the party are understood to be considering their position.

In response to Greene resigning the whip last week, Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay said he had “promised change” when he took over last year and “will keep standing up for the common-sense values of mainstream Scotland”.

Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said many people who backed Davidson’s Conservatives, like Greene, were “now dismayed to see that party lurching to extremes”.