Phil Gallie - Parliamentary Career

Parliamentary Career

Gallie was elected as Member of Parliament at Westminster for the Ayr constituency in the 1992 general election. He lost his seat, along with all other Conservatives in Scotland, at the 1997 general election.

A vice-chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party, he was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Gallie was elected to represent the South of Scotland area as a list member, having narrowly failed to win the Ayr constituency seat by 25 votes. Gallie again stood unsuccessfully for the Ayr Westminster seat in 2001, but was re-elected in the 2003 Scottish Parliament election, again as a list member.

Gallie stood for the leadership of the Conservative group in the Scottish Parliament, but lost to David McLetchie. He was the Scottish Conservative spokesman on constitutional affairs. He did not stand for re-election in 2007, intending to focus on his ambition of becoming a Member of the European Parliament.

Gallie was initially selected to contest the United Kingdom general election, 2010 in the Ayrshire Central constituency, but Maurice Golden was eventually chosen as the election was not held until May 2010. Gallie was still active in politics when he died in January 2011, aged 71.