Douglas Ross is under pressure to see off unrest within the Scottish Tories at Holyrood amid concerns his leadership has hit a “dead end”.

Mr Ross’s party is regularly behind both the SNP and Labour in polls , with some regarding Anas Sarwar’s party as a stronger opposition to the Scottish Government than the Tories.

Last week, Tory MSP Maurice Golden voted against his party at Holyrood after Mr Ross’s frontbench backed Rishi Sunak’s plans to weaken net zero commitments.

Mr Golden was not punished for breaking the whip, raising questions about Mr Ross's authority.

Scottish Conservative insiders have raised concerns that Mr Ross is unable to keep his MSPs in line amid growing “frustration” with a lack of progress being made.

One Scottish Conservative MSP said: “We seem to have hit a dead end under Douglas.

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“It’s not terrible, but we’re clearly not really going anywhere fast.”

They added: “We just seem to have hit a dead end and there’s a lot of frustration within the Holyrood group.

“Douglas hasn’t sent the best message out with letting Maurice off Scott-free, it makes us look a bit daft and Douglas a bit powerless.”

Asked about the lack of punishment for Ms Golden’s intervention, Mr Ross told The Herald he would “be slightly hypocritical” if he took action against his MSP “because I voted against the UK Government at times”.

He added: “I have a serious disagreement with Maurice on this issue. I think he is wrong, but I don’t try to stop him articulating his views. He’s entitled to have those opinions.”

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Asked by journalists again why no punishment would be laid on Mr Golden, Mr Ross said that “you can take action as a party leader if people don't vote with the whip if they have a position within the party”.

He said: “Maurice does not have a position within the parliamentary group - he's not in the shadow cabinet or a shadow minister.

“Therefore, there's not any action that I would take on a backbench member who takes a different view from me and the party.”

Speculation had mounted that Jamie Greene was sacked by Mr Ross as justice spokesperson after he repeatedly spoke out in favour of the gender recognition reforms, a position Mr Greene has held since it was party policy under Ruth Davidson’s leadership.

But Mr Ross denied that this was the reason behind Mr Greene being sacked.

He said: “In terms of Jamie Greene, reshuffles see people move in and out of the shadow cabinet and in and out of the cabinet.

“Humza Yousuf obviously sacked ministers within the government he inherited and then his own government and that happens all the time.

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“Labour have had a change their front bench and people have moved in and out and that is just the nature of politics.”

Asked if Mr Greene was removed from his front bench for becoming a “poster boy” for supporting the GRR, Mr Ross said: “I had a discussion with Jamie, I have a discussion with every single one of my colleagues while I was doing that reshuffle and there are people who voted in the same way as Jamie who remain in the shadow cabinet.

“So I think the conclusions that certain people have reached with regards to Jamie Greene don’t’ bear out in terms of the actual fact of others who have remained in the shadow cabinet.”

Mr Ross refused to say why Mr Greene was sacked and insisted that he was “not going to go into the details”.

He added: “But people leave the shadow cabinet to let others come in and I'm delighted that Russell Findlay and Douglas Lumsden have come into the Shadow Cabinet.

“It's my only major shadow cabinet reshuffle since the Scottish Parliament elections. I think it was the right time to do it about halfway through this parliament and I'm really delighted with the shadow cabinet team but also the contribution from all of our colleagues at Holyrood.”

During Mr Ross’s keynote address at the Scottish Conservative fringe event at the Tory conference in Manchester, he claimed that the Scottish Government was only interested in serving those in the Central Belt.

But his transport spokesperson at Holyrood, Graham Simpson, intervened – calling on Mr Ross to agree that there are also problems around the Central Belt, in another embarrassing situation for Mr Ross.