Scottish Tory leader suggests tactically voting for Labour to oust SNP

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The Scottish Conservatives’ leader, Douglas Ross, has said Tories should consider backing Labour in seats where it has the most chance of ousting the SNP, a suggestion that has prompted fury from central office.

Ross, who has said he will step down at the next election, said unionist voters should consider putting country above party and “do what is best for the country” and support “the strongest candidate to beat the SNP.”

Speaking to the Telegraph, Ross said Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer should “look a bit beyond their own narrow party agenda” if their priority was to keep the union together.

“I will always encourage Scottish Conservative voters to vote Scottish Conservative,” he said. “But I think generally the public can see, and they want the parties to accept, that where there is the strongest candidate to beat the SNP, you get behind that candidate.”

Ross said both Labour and the Tories had an opportunity due to the current crisis for the SNP, after its former chief executive was arrested in a fraud investigation and its polls slipped after a brutal leadership contest to replace Nicola Sturgeon.

“If parties maybe look a bit beyond their own narrow party agenda to what’s best for the country … what would be best is if we see this grip that the SNP has on Scotland at the moment loosened, and we see a change coming.”

A Tory party spokesperson said: “This is emphatically not the view of the Conservative party. 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.”

The SNP deputy leader, Keith Brown, said voters wavering between the SNP and Labour should be alarmed Labour was being endorsed by the Tories.

“It shows just how little difference there is between the Tories and the pro-Brexit Labour party that Douglas Ross is willing to endorse them instead of his own party,” he said. “The Tories and Labour cannot help but tune up the ‘better together’ band again. Keir Starmer has taken Labour so far to the right that they are now just a pale imitation of the Tories – backing Brexit, supporting brutal austerity and attacking devolution.

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“Do not give the Tories what they want at the next general election. The only party offering real change for the people of Scotland is the SNP.”

Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, told the Telegraph he rejected any tactical voting pact. “This sounds like the Scottish Conservatives are accepting they’re going to lose the next general election,” he said.