DOUGLAS Ross has not ruled out resubmitting his letter of no confidence in Boris Johnson after a brutal result in the local elections.

The Scottish Tory leader said voters had been clear about their concerns with the Prime Minister over partygate prior to Thursday’s poll, which resulted in his party losing dozens of councillors in Scotland and more than 300 in England.

He had previously been the first MP to call for Mr Johnson to quit when details of the parties and gatherings across Whitehall emerged, and submitted a letter to the powerful 1922 backbench committee of Tory MPs.

However when the war in Ukraine broke out, he rescinded his vote of no confidence and said he did not believe it was the right time for a leadership challenge.

Mr Ross said that while he took responsibility for his part in the poor results, the issue of rule breaking parties in Downing Street had played a role in the defeat.

Speaking to journalists this morning, he said: “Clearly it wasn't a good night and I'm disappointed.

“I want to say directly to all the voters who chose to stay at home that we understand why they did it.

“They are rightly angry, and the challenge for me in the party is to win back their trust and their support and convince them that we deserve their vote next time.

“It's a situation that I take with the utmost seriousness, that people chose to protest in this way and stay at home in many cases in this election.”

One senior UK Conservative politician told the Herald Mr Ross had been “idiotic” in his handling of the partygate saga, by calling for Mr Johnson to quit and then reneging on the demands when the conflict in Ukraine began.

They said: “Douglas has handled the partygate affair in an idiotic manner.

“He was advised prior to calling for Boris Johnson’s resignation not to go down that route, but he did anyway and now it has come back to bite him.

“Yes, we are in a mess with the Prime Minister over the parties, and he has to take responsibility for that, but Douglas Ross essentially u-turning on his criticism made it even worse in Scotland.

“He also has to take some of the blame.”

Asked about these remarks, the Scottish Tory leader said: “ I absolutely take responsibility for the result that Scottish Conservatives had here in Scotland. I'm the leader of the party here, and I take responsibility.

“I'm not avoiding scrutiny on my own record on this, but I think people can also see what's happened across the whole of the United Kingdom and there have been very disappointing results for the Conservative Party in England and Wales and in Scotland.”

Asked by The Herald if there were any circumstances in which he would consider re-submitting his letter of no confidence in the PM to the 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs, Mr Ross said: “There are always circumstances.

“It's certainly and I can assure people who have never done it, it's not an easy thing to put your letter in in the first place and I thought long and hard about that before I put it in, but I also looked at the situation in Ukraine, and couldn't ignore what was going on there.

“But there are always options that any MP has to look at in the current situation.”

He added that the conflict in Ukraine was the main reason why he was not calling for Mr Johnson to quit again, saying: “I don't believe we should be doing anything to destabilise the efforts there.”

Mr Ross was asked about reports that some senior Scottish Tories were suggesting he should consider his own position, to which he urged them to speak directly to him rather than to the press.

He said: “ I am speaking to colleagues the whole time and I understand, I was speaking to a number of them yesterday and this morning. I'll continue to engage with them going forward and you know, there are obviously things that I could have done better.

“We all could have done better. But ultimately, across the UK, a significant proportion of traditional Conservative voters have decided to stay at home and register a protest vote and that happened here in Scotland in Wales and England in London in particular.”

The Scottish Tory leader also insisted he believed his party could return to second place in Scotland, but could not explain how if Boris Johnson was still leader of his party.

Mr Ross said: “This is something that takes work, it takes effort and it's something I'm determined to do as a leader of the party.

“There are opportunities to show voters who stayed at home this time, who registered their protest, actually what they can see being delivered by Conservatives at a local level.

“I think that's really important. We don't have enough focus on what our counsellors do up and down the country.

“So it's things like that - rebuilding trust, it's encouraging them to come back to the Conservatives, and that's something I'm determined to do.”