NOW CUT ARROGANT SNP DOWN TO SIZE
As Sturgeon vows to press ahead with reckless plan for referendum in 2023, Scottish Tory leader’s plea to voters:
SCOTS have been urged to use today’s council elections to ‘knock the arrogant Nationalists down to size’.
Scottish Conservative leader Douglas ross issued a rallying cry to those who support the Union by saying the SNP is beatable in council areas all across Scotland.
He also said it was an opportunity to ‘strike a fatal blow at the very heart of Nicola Sturgeon’s agenda’, and mocked the first Minister for being ‘out of touch’.
His call comes amid signs that pro-Union voters are prepared to vote tactically to defeat the SNP, by giving lower preference votes to other pro-UK parties.
Miss Sturgeon also yesterday came under fire at Holyrood for a catalogue of ‘secrecy and incompetence’, following weeks of damning findings about the ferries fiasco.
Mr ross said: ‘Just like the
Holyrood election 12 months ago, when together we stopped them winning a majority, there’s a huge opportunity to knock arrogant nationalists down to size if pro-UK voters unite again.
‘In local councils all over Scotland, it’s so close. We’re neck and neck with the SNP. If the pro-UK side comes together and votes tactically we can beat the SNP right across the country.
‘What’s at stake is not just control of your local council, as vital as that is for the public services you rely on. In this local election, it’s bigger than that. There’s a real chance to strike a fatal blow at the very heart of Nicola Sturgeon’s agenda.’
In the 2017 council elections, the SNP won 32 per cent of first preference votes and 431 seats across Scotland, while the Conservatives were in second place with 25 per cent of the vote and 276, and Labour were third with 20 per cent of the vote and 262 seats.
Local elections in Scotland use a form of proportional representation, under which voters start by selecting their favourite candidate but can then go on to rate as many other candidates as they like by order of preference.
The Scottish Conservatives and Scottish Liberal Democrats, as well as pro-UK campaign groups, have backed tactical voting in a bid to take more seats off the SNP following today’s votes.
In an interview with a proindependence newspaper yesterday, Miss Sturgeon claimed Scotland is ‘on its way to independence’ and confirmed she would publish a new White Paper ‘reasonably soon’.
Mr Ross said that if the SNP does not see any progress it should be a final ‘nail in the coffin’ of the push for a second independence referendum.
He said: ‘Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP and their nationalist colleagues should accept the result we had in 2014 and should accept there is not a majority [in favour] of having a referendum when we should be focused on the key issues dominating people’s lives.
‘The problem with the nationalists is they will always be distracted by their desire to separate the country all over again rather than the issues which can really change people’s lives and improve people’s lives.
‘That’s why people have an opportunity in these local elections to send a very strong message to Nicola Sturgeon that they don’t want more division, they want delivery on the local issues that really matter to them.’
He claimed Miss Sturgeon has been largely confined to the Central Belt during the election campaign and ‘neglected’ other parts of the country. Mr Ross added that the election allows voters to give a verdict on her ‘secrecy and incompetence’.
He said: ‘I really do think the SNP are beatable.
‘The first time the SNP were in charge of a big council like Glasgow they brought shame on the area, with rubbish-ridcommunities den streets and their own refuse workers being bitten by rats.
‘That is what happens when you put the SNP in charge of local authorities.
‘In some parts of the country they are fielding fewer candidates and in other areas their lack of leadership and delivery, I believe, will come back to bite them because so many have been let down by them.’
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said: ‘The SNP should be worried, because right across the country they have delivered £6billion of cumulative cuts since 2013, and I think people are starting to see the consequences of a growingly out of touch and arrogant government, not just in Holyrood but also at Westminster.’
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: ‘In lots and lots of seats right across Scotland we are fighting it out for a seat with the SNP for a seat in a ward that we don’t currently hold – it might be that third seat, or that fourth seat.
‘In a vast number of seats, if we get in the SNP will lose out so there is definitely a tactical means of opposing the SNP.
‘But people don’t need much persuasion – they are coming to us with real warmth again.’
‘Send a strong message’
TODAY, the power is in your hands to send Nicola Sturgeon a message she will never forget. Scotland goes to the polls and once again, just like last year, the SNP think they’ve got this in the bag.
But just like the Holyrood election 12 months ago, when together we stopped them winning a majority, there is a huge opportunity to knock the arrogant Nationalists down to size if pro-UK voters unite once again.
In local councils all over Scotland, it’s so close. We’re neck and neck with the SNP. If the pro-UK side comes together and votes tactically, we can beat the SNP right across the country.
What’s at stake is not just control of your local council, as vital as that is for the public services you rely on. In this local election, it’s bigger than that: there’s a real chance to strike a fatal blow at the very heart of Nicola Sturgeon’s agenda.
We know what her goal is – it never changes. She’s all about breaking up the country. We’ve heard it from the SNP leader in every interview she’s done this week. She’s still pushing ahead with plans for Indyref 2 next year.
even while there’s war in Ukraine and we’re recovering from the Covid pandemic, she wants to hold that divisive referendum in 2023.
Grievance
And you just know that Nicola Sturgeon will use every single vote cast for her and her candidates in this election as a reason to hold that vote.
It doesn’t matter to her or the SNP that this is a local election about local issues.
If they get their way, they’ll shamelessly exploit the result of this election and use it as an excuse to push their grievance agenda.
We’ve seen the same act after every single election over the past few years. Before the votes are even counted, Nicola Sturgeon is out there on the BBC grandstanding, furiously demanding that she gets another referendum.
She will do it again this time because the Nationalists are getting more desperate than ever before.
they are realising that, no matter how much they try to provoke a grievance with the UK Government, people in Scotland don’t want a 2023 referendum. they don’t want to see the worst kind of division and grievance in their communities next year.
Nicola Sturgeon knows that nobody wants Indyref 2 right now – people want the focus on local priorities.
But if the SNP wins control of councils across Scotland, she will be out using each and every seat won as another pathetic justification for her referendum.
that’s why it’s so vital that you go to the polling station today and vote Scottish Conservative to beat her.
the opportunity is right there, in the hands of every pro-UK voter. together we can smash the SNP’s big plan for a 2023 referendum to pieces.
If we unite, there’s a grand prize on offer. Last year, we stopped her getting that referendum. this year, we can put the final nail in the coffin of Indyref 2.
You can already see it dawning on the Nationalists that their dream of dividing Scotland is not taking hold.
the country doesn’t want to be pulled apart again. But today, we can drive the message home, and your vote can make all the difference. You can deal a hammer blow to the Nationalist cause.
If the SNP don’t make big progress on their result in the last local election in 2017, when ruth Davidson cemented our place as Scotland’s main opposition, then what does Nicola Sturgeon do?
She will be left unable to use the result to push independence. She’ll have nothing to shout about. No grievance to cite. Her plans for Indyref 2 in 2023 will be dead in the water.
It is so important that pro-UK voters come together behind the Scottish Conservatives. It suits only the SNP when the anti-nationalist majority, the same majority that came together to put a stop to Sturgeon’s dreams in 2014, is divided.
they can claim over and over again to be Scotland’s voice by winning the election through turning out a clear minority of independence-supporting diehards.
the pro-UK majority needs to come together behind one campaign to beat the SNP in your area – and the Scottish Conservatives are the only tried and tested way to deliver that.
Labour may be pretending to be squarely behind the Union now but, as this newspaper revealed, they are standing 25 candidates across the country who support a second independence referendum.
they have also spent the past five years working hand in glove with the SNP in six councils across Scotland.
Weak
Add this to the fact that they have gone backwards in every local and Scottish parliament election since devolution, and it is clear that they cannot be trusted and are too weak to stand up to the SNP.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats are a minor party and their leader has given his councillors free licence to do deals to put SNP administrations in power.
the only party that can credibly unite the pro-UK majority – and that you can totally trust not to do any backroom deals with the SNP – is the Scottish Conservatives. Last year, we won 100,000 more votes to stop an SNP majority dead in its tracks.
this year, with your support and the rest of the pro-UK majority behind us, we can kick them out of council halls right across Scotland and deal nationalism a fatal blow.
And if pro-UK voters unite, that won’t be the only SNP plan that will be sunk.
After all, no matter how much the SNP try to make it about something else, this is a local election about local issues. It’s about your local roads, streets and schools. It’s about your local community.
We know what SNP councils would do to your local community, if they get the chance.
they’ll hike council tax. they’ll hit drivers with extra charges. they’ll keep introducing controversial sex surveys to schools.
they won’t clean up your streets. they’ll abandon women’s rights. they’ll bring in a commuter tax.
they’ll go along with budget cuts from the SNP Government at Holyrood. they’ll never stand up to Nicola Sturgeon.
We can’t let any of that happen. We’ve got to make sure this election is the final nail in the coffin of Indyref 2 – and every other deeply damaging SNP plan.
today, every pro-UK voter has a huge opportunity to send the SNP into retreat. Let’s seize it.