Description
The Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party is part of the UK Conservative Party active in Scotland, it is a centre right party. The party holds 31 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament and 7 out of the 59 Scottish seats in the House of Commons in Westminster It has 209 Local Councillors of 1,227.
Douglas Ross is the leader of the Scottish Conservatives. He replaced Jackson Carlaw, who briefly served from February to July 2020; Carlaw had in turn taken over from Ruth Davidson, who held the post from 2011 to 2019. The Scottish party has no separate Chief Whip at Westminster.
In the 2017 UK general election, the party increased its number of MPs to 13 on 28.6 percent of the popular vote – its best performance since 1983 and in terms of votes since 1979 – but it fell back to six Westminster seats in 2019. In the 2016 election for the Scottish Parliament the Scottish Conservatives gained 16 seats, making it the largest opposition party, with 31 of 129 seats. In the 2021 election for the Scottish Parliament the Scottish Conservatives maintained 31 seats and remained the largest opposition party.
