Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson has gone into her party conference “absolutely” confident she has the full backing of its members.
Ms Davidson, who has reportedly faced criticism from her own MSPs over her leadership and performance at First Minister’s Questions, said she was confident of bringing forward a “really positive message” for the future of the Tories in Scotland.
Mid Scotland and Fife MSP Murdo Fraser, who she defeated to win the top job, used a newspaper column to question whether the direction in which she is leading the party will result in it being revived, while only two other MSPs backed her leadership campaign.
However, 34-year-old Ms Davidson who has recently taken up boxing came out fighting in a wide-ranging interview with The Courier ahead of this weekend’s conference in Stirling.
She said: “I’m the first leader…that has been elected one member one vote and I’m the first leader of the whole party not just the MSP group.
“I will go to the conference with hundreds of the party members as the person they elected to lead and I will be taking forward my vision of where the party’s going and also keeping people up to date of all the changes we have made over the past year.”
Ms Davidson also revealed a number of business leaders will be unveiled as part of the team pulling together Conservative proposals for further devolution in Scotland one of the issues that has split the party.
She repeated the assertion that the document would “help inform” party manifestos for the Westminster and Holyrood elections, adding “real world figures joining from the business community” would be joining the politicians already on board.
Ms Davidson will line up alongside UK Education Secretary Michael Gove for a Rally for the Union session at the conference and the Scottish leader said an emphatic victory next September was essential to stop constitutional navel gazing.
She said: “One of the reasons we need to win this referendum and we need to win it big is that politics in Scotland has been on hold for the last year.
“That will be continuing for the next year because the SNP doesn’t really want to appear to do terribly much in case it appears to upset the referendum applecart and we can’t really afford that.
“We’re going to be talking about some of the issues that really matter to people.
“These are areas like educational opportunities, things like childcare, things like ways in which we can help stimulate the economy, infrastructure and growth.”
She added: “We think this is a good opportunity for us to talk in a real Conservative way about what we can do for the future of our country and the kind of Scotland we want to see.”