Are the Scottish Conservatives on the brink of extinction?

Following a landslide defeat in the 2024 general election, the Conservative party across the UK saw a downfall in polling, and the Scottish Tories are facing being behind Scottish Labour and Reform UK, while the SNP top the polls in Scotland.

The Tories continue to trail in the polls, and UK Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, refused to say in an interview to Sky News that the Conservatives are going to be successful in next May’s devolved elections.

The Conservative Party is under threat from Reform UK, and they may suffer yet more defections to Farage’s party: two MPs and one MSP have ready defected to Reform, in addition to councillors in Scotland.

The latest opinion poll by Ipsos shows that Scottish Conservatives are on fourth places – the lowest result party ever had in history of Holyrood elections, with only 11%.

As its “older brother” in Westminster, the Scottish Tories are suffering from Reform's rise, as almost a quarter of former Conservatives voters aligned to new right-wing party, and this number keep growing.

In a recent Reform rally in Falkirk, Farage unveiled another defection of Scottish Tory peer to Reform, Malcolm Offord, who accused Conservative party of “giving up” on Scotland.

The last ace up the Scottish Conservative Party’s sleeve, opposition of second independence referendum, is not that relevant, as Reform UK is a fast-growing party even in Scottish politics, with unionism at its heart, holding a confident second place in latest polls ahead of Scottish Parliament election in May.

The Edinburgh Economist editor Bohdan Tymoshchuk caught the Scottish Conservative leader to talk about his stance on second referendum:

The future of conservatism, both UK-wide and Scotland-wide, is unclear. Reform donors told the Financial Times that Farage is expecting to merge, or make an election deal between his party and the Tories, but both sides denied this report.

As Reform UK is still in the progress of forming its Scottish branch, and is still deciding on it's leadership and policies, there is time left for the Scottish Tories and Russell Findlay to step up and campaign to retain their position as Scotland's largest unionist party in Holyrood, before the monumental 2026 election.