I couldn’t stand as Tory at next election, says Golden

A departing Tory MSP has said the party’s manifesto is likely to contain things he “fundamentally disagrees” with and he would not have been able to stand for the party again.

Maurice Golden announced earlier this year he would not be standing again at next year’s election, seemingly hitting out at the party’s shift on climate change policies.

Widely seen as being on the more liberal wing of the party, Mr Golden has said he has been approached by every other group in Holyrood except the Scottish Greens and Reform UK, including an approach from “senior Government ministers”, which he joked had been made “after a few drinks”.

Speaking on the Holyrood Sources podcast, the North East MSP said the Conservative Party had entered a “different era”.

“It’s a different form of politics, where language used is vastly different from where I started,” he said.

“You look at the press releases, everything’s shambolic, shameful, and ultimately that’s then mirrored by other parties and you end up in a zero-sum game.”

The MSP added: “I think it’s deliberate and I think it’s legitimate.

“I disagree with it and, hand on heart… I couldn’t stand as a candidate for the Conservatives at the election next year.

“I haven’t seen the manifesto, but I suspect the manifesto will say things that I fundamentally disagree with and are fundamentally different from our 2021 manifesto.”

“It’s not a problem I’m going to have to face, but I would really struggle to do that – and that’s someone who’s been a party member for 25 years and stood in seven elections over decades. So that’s quite a departure.”

A spokesman for the Scottish Tories said: “The Scottish Conservatives will continue to stand up for hard-working Scots who are being failed by the SNP and Labour governments.

“Economic growth must be the top priority for both governments if we are to fix Scotland’s public services.”

The MSP accused the Conservatives of trying to “out-Reform Reform”, which he claimed was a “difficult sell on the doorstep”.

“I think it’s up to Russell Findlay to deploy the strategy that he wants,” he said.

“I personally think that the pie is always the biggest in the centre and that’s where I would be going, that’s the Ruth Davidson era, if you like.

“And Russell’s chosen quite a different path to that with using far more populist language, going to the right, trying to out-Reform Reform. It’s a difficult sell on the doorstep.

“It’s the same sell we had in the 2011 election when we were on the doorstep saying, we’ve delivered an extra 1,000 police officers and people said back to us, ‘yeah, but the SNP are cooler, so we’re going to vote for them – we could vote Conservative, but we’re not going to’.

“I think this is the danger in this upcoming election that to try and out-Reform Reform: people think, why have Pepsi when you can have Coke?”