Only the SNP can rid Scotland of the Conservatives
by In the last Westminster election the SNP won 48 seats, gaining 7 from the Tories.
The SNP gained more seats from the Tories than Labour managed in all of England. And in Scotland, Labour only managed to win one single, solitary seat in the whole of Scotland, even trailing the Liberal Democrats’ four seats.
The stark fact of the SNP winning 48 seats – and cutting the number of Tory MPs in Scotland by more than half – compared to Labour only returning one sole MP, should be evidence enough that the SNP is the only party strong enough to beat the Tories in Scotland.
However there’s more reason that the SNP is the only party capable of getting the Tories out in Scotland.
Firstly, in every seat the Tories hold in Scotland the SNP is the clear challenger. In the last election the SNP was only behind the Tories by a few hundred votes or a swing of less than 5%.
In contrast, the closest Labour was to beating a Tory was a massive 14,658 votes behind – and that was with Labour in third place.
If only a fraction of those who had voted Labour had voted SNP a number of those Tory MPs would have lost.
But a second reason to vote SNP to make Scotland Tory-free is that most seats in Scotland are contests between the SNP and the Tories.
The fact is that it is the SNP that can eject the Tories in Scotland. Voting Labour risks seeing the Tories not only holding their seats but also gaining more.
If everyone in Scotland had voted Labour last time the Tories would have still formed the UK government in Westminster with a majority of 68 seats.
To eject the Tories from government, Labour has to win seats in England as it almost has done in the past. There have only been two elections where Scottish seats were needed but the most recent of those was half a century ago.
But let’s not forget the 2017 election. The 12 seats the Tories took off the SNP, because some former SNP votes went to Labour, gave the Tories an advantage at Westminster.
They just had to rely on the DUP to get a Parliamentary majority. Without those 12 seats a Tory/DUP alliance would have been 11 short of a majority.
The facts are clear. Only voting SNP is the guaranteed way to make Scotland Tory-free.