NINE Scottish Conservative MSPs have declared their support for Liz Truss to be the next Prime Minister as her campaign gathers momentum into the final month of the campaign.

In a joint article for The Times today, the senior Tories, who make up more than half Douglas Ross's front bench team at Holyrood hail the Foreign Secretary as a “child of the Union” who will take steps to secure the future of the UK.

In the article, Murdo Fraser, Rachael Hamilton, Liam Kerr, Stephen Kerr and Oliver Mundell, who are all members of what Mr Ross has dubbed his “shadow cabinet”, as well as Finlay Carson, Sharon Downey, Douglas Lumsden and Graham Simpson, said that Ms Truss would “break with Treasury orthodoxy by investing directly in projects in Scotland that will benefit the families, communities and businesses we represent”.

Mr Kerr and Mr Fraser were among the Scottish Tory MSPs who had originally backed Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the foreign affairs select committee, before he was knocked out of the race by MPs.

But claims in today's article triggered a row between Ms Truss’s backers and supporters of Mr Sunak, who were accused of falsely portraying the Foreign Secretary as an insurgent candidate with “a copy and paste” of Treasury policy under the former Chancellor.

Such plans are already in place through levelling-up funding that was agreed by Mr Sunak and Michael Gove before the pair left Boris Johnson’s cabinet. The former chancellor quit and Mr Gove was sacked.

A Sunak campaign spokesman said: “Rishi was the first chancellor in over 20 years to directly invest in Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish communities — he was the chancellor who broke Treasury orthodoxy. This is simply a copy and paste of current government policy.” He added that there was still “all to play for” in the leadership race.

Mr Sunak has the public support of Andrew Bowie and John Lamont, the MPs, as well as MSPs including Jackson Carlaw, the former party leader, Donald Cameron and Miles Briggs. Baroness Davidson of Lundin Links has also backed Sunak.

The Sunak spokesman claimed that the former chancellor “is the best candidate to beat Labour and stop the SNP from getting into power via the back door” and that the race for Downing Street “has only just begun”.

In another overt attack on Mr Sunak’s time in charge of the Treasury, the MSPs say that Ms Truss will boost the economy by “scrapping . . . the planned rise in corporation tax, reviewing the windfall tax on energy companies and reversing the new national insurance tax hike”.

Ms Truss yesterday sought to appeal to Scottish Conservatives by pledging that there will be no second independence referendum at any point during her premiership. Sources close to her told the paper they are confident that they will secure more endorsements after a debate with rival Rishi Sunak in Perth on August 16.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon intends to hold an independence referendum on October 19, 2023. In one of his last acts before announcing his resignation as Prime Minister, Mr Johnson formally rejected her call for Holyrood to be given the power to hold a second vote under a Section 30 order of the Scotland Act.

On October 11 and 12 the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether a referendum can be held without Westminster’s consent. Most legal expert believe powers over the constitution are widely thought to lie with London.

Meanwhile, Mr Fraser, who is MSP for Mid-Scotland and Fife, today welcomed Ms Truss's farming policy saying it would be "warmly welcomed by farmers in Perthshire and Fife".

Ms Truss's farming policy would see thousands more foreign workers allowed into UK to temporarily take up agricultural jobs under an expansion of the seasonal workers scheme.

She and Mr Sunak will head to Exeter today for the latest leadership hustings, as Tory members start to receive their ballots in the post.

The former chancellor, the clear favourite of MPs, made a series of eye-catching pledges over the weekend in a bid to win over the party's grassroots – who, ultimately, will decide his fate.

He was accused of flip-flopping today after he promised a cut in income tax from 20p to 16p by the end of the decade, and again tried to convince members that picking Ms Truss's "fairytale economics" would be an "act of self-sabotage".

Ms Truss's plans to immediately slash taxes, including reversing Mr Sunak's National Insurance hikes and scrapping his planned rise in corporation tax, are proving popular with the party faithful.