Greene warns over move to right after Braverman attack

"This sort of intervention makes it even more imperative that the Scottish Conservatives see the direction of travel of the UK party before deciding on its own future path whatever that may be," Mr Greene told our politics newsletter Unspun responding to Ms Braverman's address in the US.

"The electorate made their views on toxic culture wars clear last week and any future leader of the Conservative party, north or south of the border, ought to bear that in mind.

READ MORE: Braverman points finger at ‘liberal Conservatives’ for election defeat

"You don't win elections on the fringes of politics, you win by appealing to the mass centre ground with sensible pragmatism and a positive outlook."

In a speech in Washington DC on Monday night, Ms Bravernman said she was angered by the flying of the Pride flag in her department calling it a “monstrous thing”.

She condemned her party for what she said was its failure to “stop the lunatic woke virus” and that it had been dumped out of office on a failure to keep its promises.

(Image: PA) Former home secretary Suella Braverman. Photo PA.

“We won a great majority in 2019 promising to do what the people wanted,” she told the National Conservatism conference.

“We were going to use our Brexit freedoms and stop waves of illegal migrants. We were going to cut taxes. We were going to stop the lunatic woke virus. We did none of this.

“Our problem is us. Our problem is that the liberal Conservatives who trashed the Tory party think it was everyone’s fault but their own. My party governed as liberals and we were defeated as liberals. But seemingly, as ever, it is Conservatives who are to blame.”

READ MORE: Greene: Scottish Tories face 'political extinction' without debate

Ms Braverman said she was unable to stop the Pride flag being flown in her department against her wishes. 

“What the Progress flag says to me is one monstrous thing: that I was a member of a government that presided over the mutilation of children in our hospitals and from our schools,” she said.

Mr Greene, an MSP for the west of Scotland, is regarded as a potential leadership candidate to succeed Douglas Ross who announced his decision to stand down from the role of leader last month.

He was dropped from a frontbench role by Mr Ross last year, with his vote in favour of the of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill seen as being the most likely factor.

Mr Ross resigned in the midst of the election campaign following an internal furore over his decision to stand in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East – a contest he would eventually lose – in the stead of former MP David Duguid, who was deemed by party bosses to be too ill, an assessment he disputed.

In an article in The Times on Monday Mr Greene warned his party it could face “political extinction” if it does not have a wide debate on the future leadership of the party.

He said there should be no “swift return to business as usual” after his party slumped to its lowest-ever vote share at a general election, returning five MPs north of the border.

Meanwhile, another of the party's MSPs Stephen Kerr has said the Scottish Tories must stop “pussyfooting around the leftist consensus” – including supporting free tuition fees and prescriptions.

Mr Kerr – who also failed to win the Angus and Perthshire Glens seat at last week’s vote – said Mr Ross’s replacement should oppose “shibboleths” within Scottish politics which “are unworkable in the long term” like university fees, medications and the single police force.

“We need to challenge the consensus-thinking that many Scottish Conservatives have been too shy to oppose – issues such as free prescriptions to all, centralisation of our policing, minimum unit pricing for alcohol, and yes, even free tuition,” Mr Kerr wrote in the Telegraph on Tuesday.

“These have become shibboleths that the people who administer and use them know are unworkable in the long term, but we Conservatives haven’t dared to oppose.”

He added: “For Scottish Conservatives, the time for pussyfooting around the leftist consensus is past.

“People will want to hear what our policies are now that we are freed from opposition to independence being our main offering.

“I and the party will support a leader who can lead the discussion on centre-right policies and communicate them with conviction to an electorate who will be glad to hear a new song from the Scottish Conservatives.”

The Central Scotland MSP also called for Mr Ross to step aside to make way for an interim leader, elected by MSPs, to take over for the duration of the contest.

“I have always admired Douglas Ross, whose commitment to his constituency was second to none,” he wrote.

“He resigned the leadership during the election campaign and should now step down in favour of an interim leader chosen by MSPs.”

The party should take its time in electing a new leader, Mr Kerr added, with the focus now on the Labour Government in Downing Street and the “doom spiral” of the SNP.

“There is no need to bounce the party into a quick coronation in time for the start of the new parliamentary session at Holyrood in September,” the Tory MSP said.

“It would be entirely counterproductive when the leadership contest itself presents us with an opportunity to discuss the future of our party in a way we haven’t in more than a decade.”

It is understood a formal decision on whether Mr Ross will remain on as leader until after the contest is yet to be taken.

His comments come as Liz Smith, the party’s finance spokeswoman and another senior MSP, told the same newspaper she believed former candidate Murdo Fraser would stand to replace Mr Ross.

Mr Fraser stood more than a decade ago but lost out to Ruth – now Baroness – Davidson, with the key pledge to separate the Scottish Tories from the party in the rest of the UK.

His push, Ms Smith predicted, would “be part of the mix” in the coming contest.