Only the SNP can beat the Tories in Westminster seats across Scotland

The constituency contest in Aberdeenshire North & Moray East against Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross is a reflection of the election across all of Scotland.

The past few weeks have been torrid for the Tories, with Rishi Sunak lambasted for leaving the D-Day commemoration early, and Douglas Ross embroiled in controversy over allegations of deliberately covering up expenses he shouldn’t have claimed as well as parachuting into the seat he is now contesting.

These events mean the Westminster Tory government is toast. Their incompetence and self-serving attitude has seen to that.

However, it will ultimately be voters in England who boot this crumbling Tory government out of office. As polling expert John Curtice has said, Labour doesn’t need Scotland to win a majority of Westminster seats.

In Scotland the contest is different. It is only the SNP who are in a clear position to get the Tories out in the constituencies they hold; and it is only the SNP who can keep them out in the significant number of seats where they came second last time.

That is why the contest in Aberdeenshire North & Moray East is a reflection of the election across Scotland. Douglas Ross has become the face of the self-serving Tories in Scotland and the only party that can stop him and his party is the SNP.

The SNP are the main challenger in all Conservative seats in Scotland and independent analysis from ‘Tactical Vote’, a website set up to advise the public on how to vote to beat the Tories, shows that in most Scottish seats the recommendation is to vote SNP, including in every single Tory held seat.

This general election not only offers voters the chance to get rid of the Tory government but also those Tory MPs in Scotland ‘who backed Boris and backed Brexit’.

Every Scottish Tory MP who, at the last general election, backed Boris and backed Brexit should face the consequences for the damage their political choices have caused.

Whilst the Tories have resurrected the idea of national service in this election people can do a Scottish national service by voting SNP to get rid of these remaining Tory MPs.

But that is by no means the limit of our ambition. In Scotland we can do so much more than that. We can make a change that means we never again have to suffer another Tory Westminster government.

The only way to protect Scotland from Westminster folly is for decisions about Scotland to be made in Scotland – with independence.

And voting for Labour in Scotland won’t get the Tories out anywhere. In fact, they hadn’t even chosen their candidates for Tory-held seats in late March and are advising activists in them to campaign in other seats.

Voting Labour in Scotland actually runs the risk of letting the Tories hang on or, perish the thought, gain seats.

Besides, Labour won’t make any difference for Scotland anyway. They’ve pledged to carry on with Tory cuts and Tory Brexit. They only offer more of the same.

Labour don’t need Scotland to enter No.10. But Scotland will need the SNP when they do.

So, in Scotland, this election is an opportunity for Scotland to do its bit in getting the Tories out – the opportunity to choose an alternative to Westminster austerity and Brexit.

And the only party who can do that here and across Scotland is the SNP.