AN ARCH Brexiter has beaten one of Ruth Davidson’s key Holyrood allies in a battle for the candidacy in one of the Scottish Tories’ target seats.
Braden Davy, the assistant director of the Scottish Vote Leave campaign, has been selected by local party members to fight the Angus North and Mearns constituency at the next Scottish Parliament election in 2021.
He defeated the Scottish Tories’ chief whip Maurice Golden, who is a list MSP for the West of Scotland.
The North Angus and Mearns seat is currently held by SNP rural affairs minister Mairi Gougeon, who won it in 2016 with a majority of 2,472 over the Conservatives.
However a year later, the overlapping Westminster seat of Angus, which had been SNP-held since its creation in 1997, was won by Tory Kirstene Hair in the blue wave that swept over the North East.
READ MORE: Ruth Davidson branded 'shameless' over Brexit flip-flop
Mr Davy said of his selection: “I think being a Brexiteer helped.
“A large majority of our members voted Leave, and wanted someone who is a local councillor who lives in the constituency and shares their belief in Brexit.”
Despite previously working for MP Ross Thomson, Boris Johnson’s Scottish campaign manager, Mr Davy said he was still “on the fence” in the Tory leadership contest.
He said: “I’m waiting until I see their performance at the Scottish Hustings [on July 5].
“I’ll be basing it on who is going to defend the Union, has a good policy platform, and will deliver Brexit.”
Mr Davy, 27, a former McDonald’s worker from Northumberlands, was previously a Scottish Labour candidate, standing against Alex Salmond in Gordon at the 2015 election.
He defected to the Tories after the EU vote, saying Labour was “weak on independence” and its attitude was “belittling and patronising”.
READ MORE: Labour candidate defects to Tories over party's "weak" stance on independence
In 2017, he was elected a Tory councillor for Forfar on Angus council.
An SNP spokesperson said: “This is yet another embarrassment for Ruth Davidson, and shows whatever authority she may have had is quickly ebbing away.
“As much as she tries to distance herself from her toxic colleagues, it’s clear the Tories are still pandering to the will of hard-line Brexiteers and preparing to sell out Scotland.”
In another internal selection fight, Lothians list MSP Gordon Lindhurst saw off a challenge from Holyrood colleague Miles Briggs for the Tory candidacy in the SNP-held Edinburgh Pentlands constituency.
Mr Lindhurst contested the seat in 2016, while Mr Briggs stood in neighbouring Edinburgh Southern.
Edinburgh Southern is currently one of Labour’s few winnable seats in Scotland thanks to the formidable campaign machine built by Ian Murray, the MP for the equivalent Westminster seat of Edinburgh South.
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