RUTH Davidson is set to quit as leader of the Scottish Conservatives.
Party sources confirmed Ms Davidson was considering her position and was expected to make a statement tomorrow.
The 40-year-old Edinburgh MSP has been Scottish Tory leader for almost eight years.
The news broke hours after Boris Johnson moved to suspend parliament for five weeks in order to stop MPs blocking a no-deal Brexit.
Mr Davidson has never hidden her disdain for Mr Johnson, or her opposition to no-deal.
However sources said her decision was not in response to the Prime Minister’s increasingly hardline on Brexit, but based on lifestyle and family commitments.
Ms Davidson gave birth to her first child, Finn, last October and is due to marry her partner Jen Wilson in the coming months.
Her spokesman said: “Ruth will make her position clear in due course. There will be no comment this evening.”
The Scottish Sun quoted a senior party source who said Ms Davidson felt "increasingly at odds with the new leadership in London".
They also said the MSP had been under "huge pressure as a new mum".
Ms Davidson has been Scottish Tory leader since 2011, and has been widely credited with her party's revival north of the Border.
A spokesperson for First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “If these reports that Ruth Davidson is poised to quit are true then it begs the question – if she is no longer prepared to tolerate government by Boris Johnson then why should Scotland be expected to?”
Scottish Labour Leader Richard Leonard added: "If the rumours are true then the loss of Ruth Davidson as leader of the Scottish Conservatives will be a real blow to her party.
“This shows that even within his own ranks, Boris Johnson is already losing support and credibility.
"Scotland and the UK needs a General Election as quickly as possible to oust him from Downing Street and elect a Labour government."
Appearing on the Edinburgh fringe this month, Ms Davidson deepened her rift with Mr Johnson by warning “millions” of families would suffer from the economic shock of a no-deal Brexit.
She said: “Brexit itself has never been done by any country. Nobody has ever left the EU.
“My own view is that, particularly after the issues that we had in 2008 with the worldwide economic crash, there’s quite a lot of people that would really struggle, even if there was a very mild economic shock to the United Kingdom, even if it was only a short-term one.
“There are millions of people in this country who have no savings, whose wages haven’t kept up and overtaken inflation in the last 10 years, who live two or three weeks out of every month in their overdraft as it is, and actually can’t afford an economic shock to this country.
“That’s one of the reasons I’m urging people to get round the table and have a compromise and make sure we get a deal across the line.”
She also spoke at the Fringe about the extreme tiredness she felt looking after her son, and wrote a revealing newspaper article about her mental health issues as a teenager.
She said she had questioned her own sanity and wanted to “curl up and die inside” and felt “scared, ashamed, guilty and hopeless” when diagnosed with clinical depression as an 18-year-old student at Edinburgh University.
Ms Davidson first spoke about her mental health in September 2018, when she disclosed she had self-harmed by cutting herself, punching walls and drinking too much.
She said she never wanted to be Prime Minister in case it affected her mental health.
Ian Murray, Labour MP and supporter of the pro-EU Best for Britain campaign, said: “Ruth Davidson is a formidable politician and her departure will be deeply felt by her party.
“She campaigned tirelessly for a Remain vote in the EU referendum, but the Tories under Boris Johnson have become a hard Brexit party, so it is not surprising that it has come to this.
Brexit latest:
- Johnson may have made independence 'completely inevitable' says Nicola Sturgeon
- Scottish Tories 'hiding in their bunker' after Johnson moves to suspend Commons
- Boris Johnson branded a 'tin pot dictator' over Commons suspension plan
- MPs seek emergency court ruling to stop Boris Johnson proroguing parliament
“The Prime Minister and his allies are willing to crash the UK out of the EU without a deal, and they are no longer listening to voices of reason.
“Boris Johnson’s plan for a hard Brexit is a threat to the Union, and sensible Tories know this.”
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: “It’s no surprise Ruth Davidson has run out of reasons to stand by this dangerous and power hungry Prime Minister.
“There must be lots of other like-minded conservatives who are horrified at this blatant abuse of power and can’t stomach being party to this destructive agenda any longer. They should take this as the signal to abandon ship.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel