Scottish Tory MP warns 'this is not as low as it gets' for the party

Scottish Conservtive MP Andrew Bowie has said his party must "not accept that this is as low as it gets" after slumping to its worst election result ever last month.

The shadow energy minister, who held onto his West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine seat at the general election, said that both the Scottish and Welsh elections in 2026 and the English local elections next year would be "very tricky" for the Tories as the party tries to recover.

"We cannot and we should not accept that this is as low as it gets, it could get worse," he said. "From November, that's where the work begins."

Bowie, who is backing Kemi Badenoch in the race to replace former prime minister Rishi Sunak as the UK party's leader, made the comments on The Rundown podcast, which is produced by Holyrood's sister title PoliticsHome.

Damian Green, the former deputy prime minister, who lost his Ashford seat in the election, agreed it could take a while for the Tories to start improving.

Appearing on the same podcast, he said: "It's a curve. I don't want to talk us into a decline, but curves move gradually, you move gradually along, so that's what will happen, and what needs to happen."

Green, a former leader of the One Nation caucus of Conservative MPs in the Commons, who is backing shadow security minister Tom Tugendhat to be the next leader, agreed that things need to change if the party wants to win back power.

"If the Conservative party can't be shocked back to common sense and decent behaviour by being reduced to 121 seats in parliament, then that would make me question its longevity," he said.

Former cabinet minister Mark Spencer, who lost his Sherwood seat at the election, is backing ex-immigration minister Robert Jenrick to rebuild the Conservatives both in parliament and in local government, where it has lost more than 2,000 councillors in the past few years.

"But we do need to brace ourselves that next May [when the English local elections are held] may well be quite tricky, whoever wins this leadership competition," he said.

The seats up for grabs in 2025 were mostly last fought in 2021, when the Tories were still polling relatively well.

Spencer said the party therefore "must not accept that we are at our lowest point right now" and called for unity after years of internal rows that saw multiple leaders desposed by their own MPs.

In addition to Badenoch, Tugendhat and Jenrick, three other candidates — Mel Stride, James Cleverly and Priti Patel — have made it to the first round of the leadership contest.

MPs will whittle the list down to four by 11 September, then down to two following the party's annual conference in October, with grassroots members having the final say. The winner will be declared on 2 November.

The Scottish Conservatives, meanwhile, have fired the starting gun on the race to replace Douglas Ross as leader, with the winner set to be announced next month.