The leader of the Scottish Conservatives has sparked a major Tory row after he suggested Tory voters should vote Labour at the next election if their candidate is best placed to beat the SNP.
Douglas Ross risked a rift with Rishi Sunak as he said Scottish voters should “do what’s best for the country” to help “loosen” the nationalists’ grip on power north of the border.
A Tory spokesperson in Westminster fired back by insisting that tactical voting was “emphatically not the view of the Conservative Party” and that voters should support the Tories “wherever they are standing”.
Mr Ross’s remarks, in an interview with TheTelegraph, came at a time of crisis for the SNP in the wake of Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation as first minister and party leader.
In many seats in Scotland, it will be Labour or the Lib Dems who are seen as the most likely challengers to the SNP at the next general election.
Mr Ross said: “The public know how to tactically vote in Scotland. I will always encourage Scottish Conservative voters to vote Scottish Conservatives.”
He added: “But I think generally the public can see and they want the parties to accept that where there is a strongest candidate to beat the SNP you get behind that candidate.”
Mr Ross said: “If parties maybe look beyond their own narrow party agenda and do what’s best for the country and for me as Scottish Conservative leader what would be best is if we see this grip that the SNP have on Scotland at the moment is loosened.”
But the Tory spokesperson stressed: “We want people to vote for Conservative candidates wherever they are standing as that’s the best way to keep Labour and the SNP out.”
Grilled on the strategy on Sunday, Mr Ross denied he was asking Scots to vote Labour – emphasising that he wanted to encourage Labour and Lib Dem voters to back the Tories in rural Scotland.
He told GB News: “If people want to move on from the decade of division … the voting Scottish Conservative, and that means in some places Liberal Democrats and Labour voters backing the Scottish Conservative candidate, then we can see the SNP lose their grip on power.”
Sir Keir Starmer and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar
But any formal or even informal tactical voting pact would need to be agreed with Labour to avoid the Tories ceding seats in Scotland and getting nothing in return.
And such an arrangement would put Mr Sunak under pressure among Tory MPs south of the border, as they face an uphill struggle to hold off Keir Starmer’s Labour Party at the election expected in 2024.
It comes amid turmoil for the SNP as Ms Sturgeon husband, former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, was arrested in the investigation into the spending of around £600,000 that was earmarked for an independence campaign.
A luxury campervan, which can sell for around £110,000, has reportedly been seized by police investigating the SNP’s finances.
A Niesmann + Bischoff motorhome was taken from a house in Fife at the same time police searched the home of Ms Sturgeon and her husband, according to the Mail on Sunday.
In her first public comments since the arrest on Wednesday, Ms Sturgeon said she would “fully cooperate” with the police if they ask to interview her.
“I haven’t, but I will fully cooperate with the police as and when they request that, if indeed they do,” she told reporters outside her Glasgow home, when taking questions after giving a brief statement.
SNP president Mike Russell told The Herald the party was in the “most challenging crisis we’ve ever faced” during his 50 years involved.
