Tory election result ‘historically bad’, says outgoing Scottish leader

The Tories have endured a “historically bad” result in the General Election, the party’s outgoing Scottish leader has said.

The party looks set to suffer massive losses, with the exit poll suggesting its tally could be as low as 131 seats.

Speaking to the BBC from his count in Aberdeen as he awaited the result in his Aberdeenshire North and Moray East seat, Mr Ross said: “It is a historically bad night, there is no shying away from that at all and there will be a huge amount of reflection on the campaign and also clearly the last few years.

Clearly people are casting a verdict on 14 years of Conservative government, five prime ministers, and the country was looking for a change

“It has been particularly difficult and there’s no denying that and whoever forms the next parliamentary party will look at the options going forward and will assess the current state of play in the Conservative party and how it rebuilds after this election result.”

He said he does not regret his last-minute decision to stand but predicted an “extremely close” result.

But Mr Ross’s Scottish Tory colleague Murdo Fraser has suggested the party could increase its seat tally in Scotland.

“The exit poll clearly is in two parts, you’ve got the situation south of the border which very much is in line with polling, what we expected,” Mr Fraser told journalists at the count in Perth.

“Clearly people are casting a verdict on 14 years of Conservative government, five prime ministers, and the country was looking for a change.

“The situation in Scotland, clearly, is a very different one because it looks like people are actually making up their minds how to vote based primarily on a verdict on 17 years of the SNP in government and clearly have not liked what they have seen from the SNP and they’re up for an even bigger change, potentially, in Scotland.

“It does look like, on the basis of the exit poll, the Conservatives might not just be looking to hold the seats we have in Scotland but actually might make gains.”

But Mr Fraser’s party chairman Craig Hoy warned against using the UK-wide exit poll to predict results in Scotland.

Speaking to the BBC from the Glasgow election count, he said: “I think all of our seats are going to be very, very close in Scotland.”

Asked about analysis of the exit poll pointing to possible Tory gains in Scotland, he said: “I think we should be very cautious about taking a UK-wide exit poll and trying to extrapolate something in Scotland from it.”