Craig Hoy is the Chairman of the Scottish Conservatives, and MSP for the South of Scotland.
Well, no one can say that the campaign has been uneventful. We are now beyond the halfway mark, and this week will see the launch of the Scottish party manifestos.
As always, the later stages of the campaign will see intensified activity on the ground. They may, as they don’t always, see more focus on the specifics of policy.
Media attention is easily caught by, and directed toward, the theatrical or speculative aspects of elections, but it should be resisted. So far, too much of the coverage, both across the UK and here in Scotland, has been devoted to supposed gaffes, presentation or polling.
The fact that politicians are fond of saying that the only poll that matters is on polling day doesn’t detract from the fact that it is true.
Energy expended on margins of error or methodological flaws is waste of time when it comes to getting the message across and persuading voters – it should be left to the psephologists and strategists. If you’re on the frontline of the campaign, polls (whether they encourage complacency or dejection) are a distraction.
That’s especially true in Scotland; UK-wide polls are far too blunt to address the local landscape. It’s not just that the issues are different, but that, though this is a Westminster election, many Scots will be casting their vote against the SNP.
It has been in government for more than a decade and a half, and almost everything that affects people’s real priorities is their responsibility alone. Not that they pay much attention to those bread-and-butter issues; independence remains “page one, line one” of their manifesto, as their new leader recently confirmed.
Their focus on independence is, of course, because it’s their chief purpose. They know, however, that it is still opposed by a clear majority of Scots, who have woken up to their dismal record on the everyday responsibilities of government.
But it is red meat to throw to their dwindling number of supporters, since it’s the only thing on which they agree.
The general election result won’t remove them from government in Scotland at once, but it would be the clearest possible signal that Scotland has had enough of their malign influence. Since the last general election, the Scottish Conservatives have removed two SNP first ministers – Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf – from office.
A vote for us on 4 July could make it a hat trick, by seeing the back of John Swinney, who has been chief fixer for this rotten administration for the best part of two decades.
The Nats currently have the vast bulk of Scotland’s MPs, having won 48 of 59 seats in 2019. Every one of them emboldens those who want to tear up the UK and impedes the delivery of policies that would address Scotland’s real needs.
In seats up and down the country, it is a two-horse race between the SNP and the Conservatives. A vote for anyone but us is effectively one for the separatists. In the North East and the Borders in particular, any vote that isn’t cast for the Scottish Conservatives is wasted.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats have, in any case, backed some of the SNP’s worst policies. But they simply don’t figure at all in the running in most of these seats. The Greens and Alba are extremists, just as obsessed with separatism as the Nationalists. And a vote for Reform, which doesn’t stand a chance of winning any Scottish seats, risks letting the SNP sneak in.
As the Scottish party chairman, I’m well aware that Conservatives face an uphill struggle nationally. But in Scotland, I genuinely believe that we can not only defend our seats, but make gains at the expense of the SNP.
It is the SNP that have made the decisions that affect almost all of the issues that affect ordinary Scots – and they’ve been disastrous. While they continued obsessing about independence they neglected basic priorities like our NHS, schools, justice system and council services.
They’ve introduced a long list of abysmal policies: the grotesque gender ID bill, the illiberal Hate Crime Act, a botched bottle return scheme, and a ban on wood-burning stoves.
They created a gigantic black hole in public finances which has led to savage cuts in everything from care to colleges and pothole repairs to police numbers – yet they’ve had the biggest block grants in history, and have made us the highest-taxed part of the UK.
The Scottish Conservatives are the opposition here not just because we’re the largest party after the SNP, but because on a host of issues, we’ve been the only effective opposition.
The SNP campaign has already run into trouble over their desperate attempts to row back on their position on oil and gas. Sturgeon advocated an effective veto on new development – though, thankfully, that’s not within the Scottish government’s control – and thus endangered tens of thousands of jobs, billions in tax revenue, and any credible environmental transition.
Many of those jobs are in the North East, already a strong area for us, but it is estimated that the energy sector supports, directly or indirectly, around one in every 30 Scottish jobs.
Attempts by parts of the SNP to pretend that this has never been their policy (notably by Kate Forbes, the Deputy First Minister) were brutally shot down by Swinney – though he tried to differentiate their stance from Labour’s which is, to all intents and purposes, identical.
Only the Scottish Conservatives are standing up for this vital industry and its skilled workers, who will be crucial for any realistic attempt to deliver energy security and a transition to renewables and new technologies.
The vital message that we now have to get across in those key seats where it is a straight, and often a close, fight between us and the SNP is that a vote for any other party risks letting the Nationalists in.
Things may look difficult for us across the UK, but in Scotland the Conservatives can not only hold our seats, but make gains at the SNP’s expense which could finish them off as a significant parliamentary force, north and south of the border.
The post Craig Hoy: Voting Conservative is voters’ best chance to save, and strengthen, Scotland’s vital oil and gas sector appeared first on Conservative Home.
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Author: Craig Hoy MSP
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