Douglas Ross has declared the future of Scotland is on a “knife edge” after polls showed Nicola Sturgeon is within reaching distance of getting an overall majority in the Scottish election.
With two weeks to run to voting day the Scottish Conservative leader repeated his message that by voting Conservatives the SNP could be denied the chance of staging a second independence referendum.
According to a Savanta ComRes survey published on Thursday the SNP will return 63 MSP, two short of a majority, the same number as in 2016.
The same poll predicts that the Scottish Conservatives will return 32 MSPs, one more than in 2016.
However there would still be a pro-independence majority at Holyrood, with the Scottish Greens forecast to return eight MSPs, two more than 2016.
Ross said: “It is on a knife edge. One poll suggests the SNP will just get a majority by one seat on one poll shows they will fall short of a majority by two seats.”
“But the polls also showed that the strongest party to stop that, the only party to be making gains is the Scottish Conservatives. People can see by using their party list vote is the way to stop an SNP majority, stop the next parliament being fixated by another independence referendum and get it absolutely onto a recovery and rebuilding Scotland.”
Ross accused the SNP of taking a “wrecking ball to the economy” with referendum plans in contrast to the Scottish Tory proposal to fund 60,000 affordable new homes over the course of the next parliament,two-thirds of which would be for social rent.
The Tories also give homebuyers a tax cut by raising the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) threshold to £250,000 meaning three quarters of all buyers would avoid of the property tax entirely.
Ross said: “We will continue to take that positive message about what we can do here in Scotland, if we have a parliament focused on the recovery”
“But we can only do that by uniting behind the Scottish Conservatives and through pro- UK voters uniting behind us like we did five years ago. Do that again at this election and we can stop an SNP majority.”
