The Scottish Mail on Sunday

New party planned to break Holyrood’s socialist stronghold

Progressiv­e alternativ­e aims to f ield candidates at 2016 election

- By Michael Blackley SCOTTISH POLITICAL EDITOR

A NEW political party is being launched to represent ordinary people fed up with the growing Left-wing consensus at Holyrood.

The Scottish Progressiv­e Party, to be launched later this year, will put candidates forward for the next Scottish parliament elections in 2016.

The party is being set up by businessme­n, academics and lawyers frustrated at the increasing dominance of ‘socialist’ parties who want to ramp up taxes and expand the state machine.

It will propose a radical approach, including lower taxes for working families, greatly reduced state spending and big cuts to what it sees as a bloated public sector.

But the new party could threaten the future of the Scottish Conservati­ves, just over three years after Tory leadership candidate Murdo Fraser claimed the party was a ‘toxic’ brand in Scotland that should be replaced with a centre-Right alternativ­e.

Strategist­s believe around 15 per cent of voters in Scotland may see themselves as centreRigh­t but choose not to vote Tory. It is understood a prominent Scottish businessma­n who has previously invested hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in political parties in Scotland has expressed his interest in the new party.

It has already registered with the Electoral Commission and has set up a head office in Edinburgh’s New Town. James Mac- Donald, a committee member of the Scottish Progressiv­e Party, said: ‘We are people from everyday life who have got together via the letters pages of newspapers and internet forums to say we are not enthralled with the Left-wing consensus in Scottish politics.

‘It is an old-style party – the Progressiv­e Party was a coalition against socialism – and we believe in economic certainty and that work must pay.’

The new party is not expected to launch formally until after the General Election in May but is already recruiting members and supporters, with around 25 people heavily involved in developing its policies.

Securing as little as 5 per cent of the overall regional vote in 2016 could be enough to win seats at Holyrood, where the party plans to fight against the burgeoning public sector and ‘squanderin­g’ of money on projects such as wind farms and trams.

The group’s new policy website says: ‘It is time to return government spending to affordable levels, reduce the tax burden and upgrade our infrastruc­ture. We firmly believe that our future lies in a knowledge-based, low-tax and lightly-regulated economy.’

One high-profile backer, who did not want to be named, said: ‘It will be a grassroots party and a number of people are coalescing on it.

‘The Tories are dead i n Scotland, the Lib Dems are not doing well and the other two are far too Left-wing.’

A series of centre-Right individual­s are also backing a new ‘centre for civic enlightenm­ent’, which will seek to promote policies that challenge the Left-wing consensus.

Historian Michael Fry, TaxpayerSc­otland director Eben Wilson and former Tory MSP Brian Monteith are among those in talks about re-energising the centre-Right in Scotland.

Mr Monteith has supported the idea of a new alternativ­e to the Tories. He said: ‘A centrist Scottish Unionist Party that would seek to combine the British welfare state with limited government may yet prove more attractive to those who voted No than voting for those whose time has passed.’

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SUPPORTER: Brian Monteith

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