Conference speech by Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay
Left to right: Russell Findlay, Andy Burnham, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage.
The SNP came to power just after my daughter’s second birthday.
She’s now 21.
And they’ll remain in power until she’s 26 years old, at least.
She’s part of a generation of Scots who’ve only known a nationalist government in Edinburgh.
They’ve seen the SNP trash Scottish education.
Impose the UK’s highest taxes to pay the highest state benefits.
And sacrifice Scottish oil and gas workers at the altar of Net Zero.
The SNP are responsible for all that’s wrong with Scotland’s NHS, schools, policing, roads.
And so much else.
But they’ve normalised a corrupt culture.
Of blaming others for the problems entirely of their making.
Pointing the finger at Westminster.
In order that their toxic record doesn’t stick.
This con trick helps explain their grip on power.
However, there’s another reason.
Pro-independence voters will vote SNP regardless.
When Nicola Sturgeon tried to destroy her former friend Alex Salmond.
They kept voting SNP.
When Nicola Sturgeon’s husband stole from their own members – and she didn’t see the campervan.
They kept voting SNP.
And when Nicola Sturgeon fled high-tax Scotland for London.
They still vote SNP.
Our United Kingdom is as important today as it’s ever been.
Our bonds of kinship and respect.
Our values of fairness and decency.
Our unshakeable British spirit of resilience.
Many people will tell you that the risk to the Union has passed.
But this is wishful thinking.
Because all that matters to the SNP is breaking up our United Kingdom.
Scots rejected separation in 2014.
But SNP politicians have never respected the referendum result.
They agitate relentlessly for a re-run.
And keep changing the rules to get their way.
Kemi Badenoch and I stand up to them.
While Nigel Farage’s Reform can’t be trusted.
He’s open to another referendum and even fields pro-independence candidates.
Andy Burnham’s Labour can’t be trusted.
He crassly and naively compares Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom with that of Northern Ireland.
At the same time, John Swinney is forming a pact with Sinn Féin.
The same Sinn Féin that has never denounced the IRA slaughter of thousands of innocent people.
Their murder of Scottish soldiers.
Their fatal bombing of this very conference in 1984.
Conference, last week I visited Faslane on the Clyde.
The home of our nuclear deterrent, which has protected us for decades.
Faslane features in a new TV show which simulates a Russian attack.
Starring none other than Michael Gove as PM and Nicola Sturgeon as his deputy.
The Guardian TV reviewer describes Sturgeon as a “whining and furious goblin”.
Possibly the first time I’ve agreed with The Guardian.
This show raises public awareness about the threats we face.
But Andy Burnham says he’ll put social security over national security.
The SNP are even more dangerous.
They would shut Faslane and surrender our nuclear weapons.
Conference, I want to close with a warning, and with a pledge.
My warning:
Those who say the threat to our Union has passed are dangerously complacent.
My pledge:
For the sake of my wonderful adult daughter, and the next generation of Scots, I’ll keep fighting for Scotland.
I’ll stand up to divisive nationalism.
I’ll back oil and gas, as we did in the Aberdeen South by-election.
And with Kemi, we’ll show the people of Scotland there is another way.
Of educational excellence, fairer taxes, lower benefits, efficient public services and a strong economy.
Conference – that’s the Conservative way.
Top of page picture: Russell Findlay canvassing for votes at an agricultural fair.