Thursday's election is vital in determining the future of Scotland. While politicians often make such claims, this vote is too important to miss. For those who have not yet voted by post or in person, I urge you to make time to go to your local polling station. Scotland needs you to turn up. Your vote can help stop an SNP majority and all the damage and upheaval that would cause.
How to Vote: Two Ballot Papers
When you enter the polling booth, you will receive two ballot papers. The purple ballot paper is to elect your constituency MSP. The peach-coloured paper is for the party of your choice, which elects MSPs on the regional list. Voters are increasingly savvy about the dynamics in their constituency, which may influence their purple ballot, especially if defeating the SNP is a priority.
For instance, pro-UK voters know that in constituencies like the three seats across the South of Scotland, near the Border, and throughout much of the North East, as well as Eastwood, Moray, Ayr, and Perthshire, only the Scottish Conservatives can beat the Nationalists. However, regardless of where you live, the peach ballot paper is your secret weapon to stop an SNP majority.
The Power of the Peach Vote
By voting Scottish Conservative on the peach ballot, you help elect regional list MSPs who will stop John Swinney in his tracks. Peach votes for the Scottish Conservatives denied Nicola Sturgeon an outright victory in 2016, when I led the party, and in 2021, when Douglas Ross stopped the SNP. If pro-UK voters stick to this strategy today, together we can do it again. Using the peach ballot to vote Scottish Conservative is the tried and tested method of denying the SNP a majority.
Since becoming Scotland's biggest opposition party, we have held the SNP to account for their failures. Often we have been a lone voice in Holyrood standing up to their reckless policies and lack of focus on people's real priorities. Scots do not need to look far for an alternative vision to the SNP's plans for Scotland.
The Scottish Conservative Vision
The Scottish Conservatives, led by Russell Findlay, have published an election manifesto full of positive and ambitious ideas to get Scotland working again: to help business, improve education, and help young people get onto the housing ladder. Russell and his team have been talking about the issues that matter to you: the cost-of-living crisis, growing the economy, creating job opportunities, ending the 8am rush for a GP appointment, restoring standards in schools, ending soft-touch justice from the SNP, and upgrading our roads.
Above all, this election should have been about the cost-of-living crisis. People are worried about rising energy bills, the price of food, and council tax bills that have skyrocketed. But to nobody's surprise, John Swinney and the SNP have made this six-week campaign about their favourite topic: independence.
Swinney's Independence Obsession
Breaking up the United Kingdom has been a lifelong obsession for John Swinney. He has been an SNP member for almost half a century, served as national secretary, leader twice, and was Nicola Sturgeon's right-hand man for the best part of a decade. Swinney was at the heart of the Yes movement in 2014 and, like every Nationalist, has refused to accept that Scotland voted decisively to remain part of the UK. Since that vote, the SNP have agitated for another divisive referendum instead of focusing on the day job.
Swinney has used this campaign to ramp up demands for another referendum as soon as 2028. He has confirmed that if he wins a majority, he will immediately demand talks with Sir Keir Starmer to grant his wish. He has said the first vote of the new Scottish parliament will be to rubber-stamp that referendum strategy.
As someone who passionately believes in keeping the United Kingdom together, I am extremely worried that Keir Starmer is so weak and prone to U-turning that he will cave to Swinney's demands. Swinney will not let up until he achieves his dream, even working with Sinn Fein to make it a reality. He said he would 'enjoy the cooperation' to 'secure my objective of winning Scottish independence'. For the SNP leader, even the erstwhile political wing of the IRA are not beyond the pale as long as they help him break up Britain. Most right-minded Scots will be appalled that he wants to form an axis with a party linked to terror and destruction.
The SNP's Woeful Record
Swinney's relentless focus on constitutional matters is a perfect distraction from the SNP's woeful record over the last two decades. He has been at the SNP top table almost every day since 2007, so that record is his record: two ferries that cost half a billion pounds and do not sail; a new prison that has gone up ten-fold in cost to £1 billion and is years behind schedule; a wrecking ball taken to Scotland's once world-leading education system; Europe's worst drug deaths rate; over 10,000 children without a permanent home; and people forced to pay the highest taxes in the UK only to get poorer public services.
That is why he wants the first vote in the new parliament to be on his obsession, not on reducing bills, attracting new jobs, or addressing the crisis in Scotland's health service. He is hell-bent on the next parliament being hamstrung by constitutional chaos.
The Real Threat of Another Referendum
This is the last thing Scotland wants or needs. Another debate on independence barely registers on most voters' priorities. Yet the threat of another referendum is real, despite pundits and supposedly pro-UK parties spending this campaign trying to tell us otherwise. Reform are fielding pro-independence candidates, and Lord Offord has provided a roadmap to another referendum. Nigel Farage has said holding a rerun of 2014 would be quite reasonable. Reform are not a Unionist party; their emergence has been a gift to the SNP. In key constituencies, a vote for Reform will split the pro-UK vote and let Nationalist candidates through, edging Swinney closer to a majority.
The Scottish Labour party and the Lib Dems are just hoping the debate around independence goes away. They are dangerously complacent about Swinney's threats and have not even tried to mount an effective challenge on the issue.
So do not squander your chance to stop an SNP majority. Do not switch on your television on Friday when the results come in and rue that your vote could have stopped Swinney if only you had cast it. Join more and more Scots who know it is just common sense to vote Scottish Conservative on their peach ballot paper.
