Interview: Murdo Fraser, Scottish Conservative Leadership candidate

ABOLISHING the Scottish Conservatives must be an arduous challenge, but that did not stop Murdo Fraser from forgetting his mission for a couple of days last week to explore the remote beaches of Sutherland.

Up there, it was the roar of fighter planes jetting through the Highland skies rather than the unbending growls of died-in-the-wool Scottish Tories that disturbed him as he took some time out with his two children during the half-term break.

The politician, who has ignited the Scottish Conservative leadership race with his radical plans to replace his party with a new, as yet unnamed, party, was unrepentant about his break at a critical time in his campaign.

“I have been on the campaign trail all over Scotland and I’m having two days with my children during the school holidays, and I don’t think that’s unreasonable,” he said, when The Scotsman caught up with him.

Taking some time out gave him a bit of breather from the Tory grassroots, who he has the challenging task of persuading that the party they have served through years of catastrophic decline should be wound up.

The irony is, of course, that Mr Fraser would probably have been a shoo-in to replace Annabel Goldie had he just kept his counsel during the contest and waited until after he had won to unleash his bold proposal.

Instead, he made his intentions clear right at the outset of the race, a position that has been praised for its honesty by supporters such as the Tory grandee Sir Malcolm Rifkind.

Others could be forgiven for thinking that such an approach smacks of naivety.

The one thing that cannot be contested is that his proposal appears to be an enormous gamble.

Persuading a party that is not called Conservative for nothing that it has to undergo major surgery has not proved plain sailing. But as members cast their votes, Mr Fraser believes that they are coming round to him.

“When we launched, there was a reaction in some quarters of shock and horror at the scale of the change we were proposing,” Mr Fraser said.

“But as the campaign has gone on, I have been all round Scotland speaking to groups of party members varying in size from around a dozen to 60.

“When we explain exactly what we are proposing, and why we are proposing it, we find that we win them round.

“Certainly, in the last week, we have definitely seen a major swing in support of what we are proposing.”

What is more, according to Mr Fraser, there has been a lot of positive feedback from the world beyond the 8,500 Conservative Party members in Scotland.

“I have had hundreds of contact from people all round Scotland who are saying ‘we are not members of the Conservative Party and we would never join the Conservative Party, but we have the same political values as you do and if you are successful we would come and join you’.

“And I think if I am successful, there will be an influx of new faces to our party, which will help convince people that it is not just the same old Tories with a different label.”

That may be so, but it is the grassroots members that Mr Fraser has to convince if he is to triumph over his rivals Ruth Davidson, Jackson Carlaw and Margaret Mitchell.

In that regard, there is no shortage of high-profile Tories who have signed up to Mr Fraser’s plan, including most of the MSP group at Holyrood and at least 46 of the Conservatives’ 133 elected councillors.

There is, however, the strong suspicion that he is not the Tory establishment candidate, given the reports suggesting Prime Minister David Cameron favours his main rival for the job, Ms Davidson.

There has been no shortage of acrimony between the two camps and there must be a real danger that – win or lose – Mr Fraser’s plan to wind up the party will split the Scottish Conservatives in a highly damaging fashion.

Despite warnings of divisions, that is not a scenario Mr Fraser envisaged.

“Everybody has to accept the outcome of the election and we have to go with the majority view of our members.

“If I am unsuccessful, I am not going to cause a split. I and my supporters will remain within the Conservative Party and do what we can to revive it, however difficult that might be,” he said.

To stride out on his own without the support of the party would be “insane”, he conceded.

He said a founding principle of the new centre-right party would be “decentralisation” – the idea that power is handed to local communities.

This approach chimes with Mr Fraser’s relaxed attitude towards transferring more powers to the Holyrood parliament.

That’s why his party would reverse Conservative support for a single Scottish police force and why he believes in UK Education Secretary Michael Gove’s academy plans.

Mr Fraser argues that strengthening devolution is consistent with protecting the Union.

“I don’t see any contradiction between the two,” he said.

“I set out at the start of my campaign what I called new unionism, which is the belief that the best way to defend the United Kingdom is to understand that most people in Scotland actually are comfortable with the idea of a Scottish Parliament and are relaxed at the prospect of having more powers.”

He added: “To simply say ‘no, no, no’ to every proposed constitutional change is more likely to drive people to vote for independence than if we are seen to be going with the grain of public opinion.”

Name: Murdo Fraser

Age: 46

Education: Inverness Royal Academy. He studied law at the University of Aberdeen.

Career: After undertaking a postgraduate Diploma in Legal Studies, he worked as a solicitor in Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

Political career: He became an MSP in 2001 after the resignation of Nick Johnston, as he was the next name on the Conservative Party’s Mid Scotland and Fife regional list. He was re-elected in 2003 and 2007. He became deputy leader of the Scottish Conservatives in November 2005 when Annabel Goldie became leader.