Tories def ied expectations, we can do it again – Ross
THE Scottish Conservatives defied expectations in the last Holyrood election and can do so again on Thursday, according to the party’s former leader.
Douglas Ross, who yesterday joined his successor Russell Findlay on the campaign trail, said his party remains the strongest possible opposition to the SNP.
He also hailed how the Tories have stood up to the Nationalist government on a series of key policy issues in the past five years.
Mr Findlay said the Tories are used to getting written off but are the only party ‘with the balls to take on the SNP’.
It comes as polls indicate the Conservatives are in danger of falling to fourth or fifth place at Thursday’s Holyrood elections. Mr Ross is
‘Use their peach ballot paper’
standing down at this election but joined Mr Findlay yesterday campaigning in support of Edinburgh South West candidate Sue Webber.
He said: ‘It gives a real reassurance to voters that if they use their secret weapon, that peach ballot paper, to support the Scottish Conservatives they can trust that we’ll work to stop an SNP majority, because that is the message we gave them in 2016 and 2021, and we delivered on it.
‘I think we have defied expectations in the past and can do it again under Russell’s leadership.
‘In terms of what we have achieved in opposition, you just have to look at some of the large areas of policy that were shaped by our intervention – for example, our opposition to Nicola Sturgeon’s dangerous gender recognition reform act... and of course it was a Scottish Conservative Secretary of State for Scotland who then rejected it at a UK level.
‘That’s just one example. Be it the high taxation of the SNP, be it their attack on free speech, it was always the Scottish Conservatives as the main opposition who were really taking the fight to the SNP.’
Mr Ross also highlighted that before she quit as First Minister, Ms Sturgeon faced months of hard questioning from the Tories on issues such as transgender prisoner Isla Bryson entering a women’s jail, while her successor Humza Yousaf was facing a Tory no confidence motion when he stood down.
Former Scottish Tory leaders Mr Ross, Jackson Carlaw and Ruth Davidson have joined Mr Findlay on the campaign trail over the May bank holiday weekend.
Mr Findlay said: ‘We are used to being written off and I’m delighted that Douglas is here to remind people that in 2021, by people across Scotland uniting on the peach ballot paper for the Scottish Conservatives, that’s how we stopped Nicola Sturgeon getting a majority back then and that’s exactly how we can stop John Swinney getting a majority this week.’
He said the Tories ‘are the only party that has got the balls to take on the SNP and we are the only party with the strength to stand up for the Union and mean it’.