UK Edition
Ruth Davidson: SNP deputy Angus Robertson on verge of defeat in 2017 election's 'Ed Balls moment'
Ruth Davidson has said the Tories are on the verge of providing “a real Ed Balls moment for Scotland” on general election night by ousting the SNP’s Westminster leader.
The Scottish Conservative leader said her party was engaged in a “titanic battle” to defeat Angus Robertson in Moray and put its chances of victory at “close to 50 per cent.”
Mr Balls, who was then Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, lost his Morley and Outwood seat in the 2015 general election in one of the greatest and most memorable shocks of the contest.
Ms Davidson said Moray was a “very pro-Union” and pro-Brexit parts of Scotland, while those who backed Remain in the EU referendum are furious at having their vote “hijacked” by the SNP as proxy support for independence.
With Nicola Sturgeon appearing to flip-flop over the past week over whether an SNP vote equated to support for an independence referendum, the Scottish Tory leader said the SNP was fighting a defensive campaign directed at its separatist support base.
She also poured cold water on concerns that the troubled start to the Brexit negotiations could drive up support for the Nationalists, warning them against “cheerleading for the UK getting a bad deal.”
Ms Davidson mocked the concept that “tales that Jean-Claude Juncker tells after a good dinner” came from an “honest narrator.”
Opinion polls have shown a surge in support for the Tories in Scotland, with them threatening to win a series of SNP-held seats in rural Scotland including that of Mr Robertson, who is defending a 9,065 majority.
Ms Davidson said their chances of ousting Mr Robertson, who is also the SNP’s deputy leader, were “pretty good” and referred to the fact that 49.9 per cent of Moray’s voters backed Brexit last year.
She said: "It's a very pro-Union part of the country, and it was the most pro-Brexit area of Scotland. I also think for those people, the 50.1 per cent of people in Moray who voted Remain, similar to thousands of people across Scotland who voted Remain that are also pro-Union, they are really angry.
"I don't think anybody has cottoned on to how angry pro-UK Remainers are that Nicola Sturgeon, Angus Robertson and others have hijacked their Remain vote to be a proxy vote for independence. People are furious about it."
She said there was a “real titanic battle up there” between Mr Robertson and Douglas Ross, a Tory MSP and professional football linesman, whom she described as a “fantastic candidate.”
Asked about the symbolic significance of winning the constituency, Ms Davidson said: “I think should Angus Robertson's seat fall, I think that's a real Ed Balls moment for Scotland."
Asked last week what she would say to thousands of Unionist voters fleeing her party for the Tories, Ms Sturgeon last week initially argued that the general election was not about independence.
However, Alex Salmond stated that an SNP vote would be used to try and force Theresa May to back down over holding a second independence referendum and Ms Sturgeon then backed this position.
Ms Davidson said the Nationalists had been “wrong-footed” by the snap general election and making the contest about independence means they are “retrenching” by attempting to appeal to their core vote, rather than reach out to Unionists.
In earlier speech to activists in Edinburgh ahead of Thursday’s council elections, she said the First Minister was “now trying to face both ways” by “telling the faithful that independence is at the heart of her campaign and telling the rest of us it couldn’t be further from her mind.”
She warned voters the Nationalists would claim “any advance in their support as a mandate for nothing but” independence and argued only her party “can lead Scotland’s fightback” by switching the political focus back onto public services.
Richard Lochhead, the SNP MSP for Moray, said: "This shows a special kind of arrogance from the Tories which feedback on the doorsteps shows is clearly backfiring as voters tell us they are determined to reject the Tories and elect Angus Robertson who has a track record for championing Moray.
"No wonder they are setting their sights on Angus Robertson – with his effective questioning at PMQs tying Theresa May in knots each week, he’s the biggest thorn in the Tories' side."
Speaking at another campaign event in Edinburgh, Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader, said voters “can protest against the Tories and protest against plans for a second referendum on Thursday” by backing her party.