Craig Hoy is the Chairman of the Scottish Conservatives, and MSP for the South of Scotland.
We’re in the final straight. As I’ve previously written, the election in Scotland is about the SNP’s terrible record in government, and how quickly we can see the back of them.
Though they – of course – made the topic of independence “page one, line one” of their manifesto (literally, and in huge type), the real priorities for most voters are the NHS, schools, crime, transport and tax. The verdict being cast by voters on the currently huge cohort of SNP MPs is also a judgment on their party’s dismal failures on all those issues in Holyrood.
There are clear signs that the Nats are genuinely rattled. John Swinney is looking increasingly shifty and tetchy, and ducked out of a radio phone-in all the other Scottish party leaders took part in.
Ructions and scandals have engulfed the party. The Scottish Conservatives, the official opposition up here, have seen off two first ministers. This is a chance to gain a third scalp.
Only we can do it. Anas Sarwar’s group of Labour MSPs at Holyrood actually voted with the Nats on some of their worst, and most unpopular, policies, from the gender self-ID plans to making Scotland the highest-taxed part of the UK. On critical issues like oil and gas, a sector which supports one in every seven jobs in Scotland, their policies are almost identical, and sound the death-knell for tens of thousands of jobs.
Their battlefield is almost entirely confined to the Central Belt that stretches from Glasgow to Edinburgh. In most of Scotland, including key seats in the South, the Borders and the North East, where the energy sector is critical, it’s a two-horse race between us and the SNP.
Many of those seats are very tight indeed. But all are winnable. I still maintain that this is a part of the UK where the Conservatives can actually make gains.
But that, admittedly challenging, task is threatened by one thing. The possibility that voters, even if they are vehemently opposed to the SNP, their toxic legacy of division and their atrocious record in government, don’t turn out for us.
Every abstention or vote for any other party might as well be cast for the Nats. A protest vote going to Reform, it turns out, might literally be that too, since it’s emerged that some of their candidates back independence – though the party chairman, Richard Tice, now admits he has no idea how many, since no one ever bothered to ask.
According to recent polling, there is a risk that Reform votes could help the SNP to win approximately 28 seats. That could bring them to just one seat short of a majority, which John Swinney has said he would claim as a mandate to deliver independence.
Reform is currently predicted to receive around eight per cent support, so there is no chance that they will win a single seat in Scotland.
But even that level of support could be enough to swing the balance in the SNP’s favour in approximately a dozen seats. By contrast, the SNP could suffer heavy losses if those who are considering voting Reform decide instead to unite behind the Scottish Conservatives.
If people currently tempted to back Reform vote for us instead, the Scottish Conservatives could win every one of our target seats against the SNP. The SNP could fall to their lowest total in more than a decade.
But each of these seats is on a knife-edge, so even a small number of votes for Reform could mean multiple wins for the SNP. That’s the message we have to hammer home in the last few days of the campaign.
Our manifesto launch – unlike the SNP’s 24 point type call for independence – concentrated on real, practical priorities. The Conservative government has delivered on lowering inflation and a National Insurance tax cut that benefits every worker in the UK.
The SNP has made Scotland the highest-taxed part of the UK, despite record block grants from Westminster. That’s a huge disincentive to come and live and work here, not just for the very rich, but doctors, teachers, business people and others crucial to Scotland’s economic growth.
SNP mismanagement has seen one in every seven Scots on an NHS waiting list. The educational attainment gap – one of their supposed priorities – has actually widened. Police numbers are at their lowest since 2008, violent crime is at a 12-year high and prisoners are being let out early because they have mismanaged the justice system.
Rural Scotland has not just been betrayed, but treated with contempt. The ferries fiasco, the broken promises on dualling critical roads, and the assaults on landowners, farmers and the fishing sector have scunnered many Scots, who now can’t wait to kick the SNP out of Westminster and, in due course, Holyrood.
The question of whether that happens depends on one thing: voting for the Scottish Conservatives in those key, knife-edge, seats. Any other choice will let the SNP off the hook, and back to pushing their separatist agenda.