Scottish Tory leader warns against Reform ‘protest vote’ as his party falls behind Farage’s

Unionists will help the SNP cling to power if they cast a “protest vote” for Reform UK in next year’s Holyrood election, the Scottish Tory leader said as a poll showed his party had fallen behind Nigel Farage’s.

Russell Findlay said backing any other party than the Conservatives “can only help the SNP” because only his party had “done the hard yards and stood up” to the nationalists at Holyrood.

Asked about the surge in support for Mr Farage’s party in Scotland, Mr Findlay said Reform “plays by different rules and has different standards applied to it”. He said voters did not know what Reform stood for or who its leaders were in Scotland, but noted that some of its members had previously backed independence.

He pledged to “double down” on explaining to Unionist voters why they should back the Tories, but admitted there was no “easy fix” for their sharp drop in support.

His comments came as a poll on Westminster voting intention in Scotland put Reform on 15 per cent, two points higher than the Tories.

A survey by the same pollster in November had the Conservatives two points ahead. The poll, conducted by Survation for the Holyrood Sources podcast, put the SNP on 33 per cent. Backing for Labour had slumped to 24 per cent.

Speaking to journalists following a keynote speech in Edinburgh, Mr Findlay said: “Any vote for any other party can only help the SNP, and I think it’s critical that we get that message across.”

Arguing that Reform was an unknown quantity, he said: “We don’t know what they represent specifically in Scotland. We don’t know any of their people. The ones we have seen, some of them believe in breaking up the United Kingdom, which is at odds with our position.

“It will be curious to see how they evolve. But all we can do in the meantime is show people across Scotland that we’re credible, that we understand business, we understand fairness, we want to lower taxes, we want to improve education.

“There is no easy fix. Being tempted by what amounts to a protest vote will only benefit the SNP.”

Mr Findlay refused to say whether the Tories would be open to working with Reform to keep the SNP out of power after the next Holyrood election, saying this was predicated on “hypothetical arithmetic”.

He used his speech to party activists to argue that the SNP “must face justice” for the damage they have done to Scotland.

A Reform UK spokesman said that the party had been “unwaveringly clear in our steadfast support for the Union” and accused Mr Findlay of trying to engineer a “blatant distraction from the Conservative Party’s glaring failures”.

He said: “The rise of Reform UK is undeniable, as reflected in polling and grassroots support. While the traditional parties cling to political point-scoring and empty rhetoric, we are working to build a credible alternative that addresses the issues that truly matter to the people of Scotland.”

In November, Richard Tice, Reform UK’s deputy leader, told The Telegraph his target was to overtake the Tories in next year’s Scottish Parliament election and become the third largest party at Holyrood. The party this week claimed to have 7,600 members north of the border, more than the Scottish Tories’ 7,000 and about the same as the Scottish Greens and Alba.

But Prof Sir John Curtice, the UK’s most eminent psephologist, has said Reform’s rise further splits the Unionist vote and makes it easier for the nationalists to win a majority of seats at Holyrood.