DISGRACED MSP Brian Monteith resigned his Conservative Party membership last night, pre-empting moves to have him thrown out of the party.
Mr Monteith quit the Tory whip at Holyrood last week after admitting that he had tried to undermine David McLetchie's leadership.
But last night he went even further and resigned from the party "with immediate effect". He said he intended "for th
e moment" to stay on at Holyrood as an independent MSP in order to represent local people and put forward his own views.
Mr Monteith said he also intended to remain an independent member of Holyrood's Audit Committee, but it would be for the committee members to decide if he should continue as convener.
"Taking these two points into consideration, it is clear that I am firstly depriving the Scottish Conservative Party of a third official Member of Parliament for Mid-Scotland and Fife region and, secondly, that I am depriving the 17-strong group of Scottish Conservatives at Holyrood of a member of the Audit Committee," he said. "I do not think it proper that I can remain a member of the party while such an arrangement exists."
The remaining 17 Tory MSPs met in private last night to decide what to do about Mr Monteith's disloyalty and several MSPs were preparing to demand that the Mid-Scotland and Fife MSP be "drummed out of the party". But they were outmanoeuvred by Mr Monteith, who informed Peter Duncan, the Scottish Tory chairman, of his decision to quit just before the meeting took place.
Mr Duncan told the MSPs at the start of the meeting that Mr Monteith had resigned, then issued a short statement, insisting "the matter is now closed".
Mr Monteith, 47, a Tory member for 29 years, said in his resignation letter: "You can't take the conservatism out of the boy - but the boy can take himself out of the Conservatives."
He said he would remain "a Conservative in thought" and would do everything in his power to help the Tories. Mr Monteith's decision to resign saves the party leadership from having to pursue a potentially damaging and bitter battle to have him expelled.
This will come as a relief to Annabel Goldie, who was elected formally as the party's Scottish leader yesterday - in a "coronation" overshadowed by Mr Monteith's resignation.
In just ten days of blood-letting, the Scottish party has lost its leader, Mr McLetchie, who quit after being unable to explain journeys he had taken by parliamentary taxi and now Mr Monteith.
Miss Goldie told the Tory group that all the in-fighting had to stop and that Mr Monteith's resignation had to bring this whole sorry saga to an end.
"What I'm going to make crystal clear is that I'm not prepared to tolerate the kind of nonsense that has gone on," she said before the meeting.
The full article contains 505 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
