Scottish Conservative leader doesn’t want to spend his career ‘just talking about unity’

The leader of the New Scottish Conservatives, Russell Findlay, does not want to spend his career “just talking about the union”, he told activists and delegates in Birmingham.

He also claimed that Scottish voters supported a Westminster bloc on gender recognition reforms north of the border, while Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies said the implementation of default 20mph limits in urban areas in the Bay Area Cardiff made people think about how decisions are made.

Findlay took up his new role at Holyrood on Friday, two days before the party’s UK-wide conference, where he and Davies spoke at a panel discussion on The Future of the Union.

“I think that although the SNP is in a terrible state and doesn’t look like it’s going to improve its situation anytime soon, we can’t be complacent,” said the party leader.

The ruling party in the Scottish Parliament saw its number of 48 MPs in the House of Commons in 2019 reduced to nine over the summer.

“Polls still show that a very significant number of people in Scotland believe that breaking up the UK is the right thing to do.”

Mr Findlay added: “I don’t want to spend my time as a politician just talking about the union.

“The Scottish Conservative Party has rightly stood up to the SNP year after year to great effect and to our electoral benefit, but now, going forward, we need to put that aside and talk about the issues that matter to people – talk about education, talk about housing, talk about the economy and show people that, after 25 years of this failed socialist consensus at Holyrood, that a conservative future is in Scotland’s best interests.”

Mr Davies called on his party to “make sure we are fighting separatists from any part of this country”.

The reality is that when it comes to the economy, all four parts of the union working together benefit from being one identity, one flag, one United Kingdom, sharing the union’s resources

He said: “No nationalist party has made this economic argument, whether in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. They will present voters with the only argument about independence and this utopia, this mirage that they want to create.

“But the reality is that, when it comes to the economy, all four parts of the union working together benefit from being one identity, one flag, one United Kingdom, sharing the resources of the union.”

Turning to the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Act, which introduced gender self-identification without medical diagnosis, Findlay described the UK government’s decision to block it as one of “the greatest recent triumphs”. of your party.

The proposed law was supported by MSPs in December 2022 and aimed to simplify the process trans people go through to obtain a gender recognition certificate in their acquired gender.

But former Scotland Secretary Alister Jack used a section 35 order to stop it becoming law and suggested it would interfere with equality law across the UK.

“One of the UK Conservative government’s greatest recent triumphs was when Alister Jack, the former Scottish Secretary at the time, and Rishi Sunak had the courage to oppose legislation that was passed in Edinburgh, despite the best efforts of the Scottish Conservative Party ,” said Findlay.

“And they said no, because it would impact equality law across the UK.

“And when the SNP made its usual complaint – ‘big bad Westminster is now dictating and disrespecting Scottish democracy’ – the people of Scotland were on the side of the UK Conservative government.

“They fully supported this lockdown and may it continue for a long time.”

Mr Davies referred to a Senedd petition, with 469,571 signatories, which called on the Welsh Government to reverse the implementation of the default 20mph limits in urban areas.

The signatories called it a “foolish idea” and claimed that “no one is driving 20mph” through St Brides Major, a village near Bridgend with a speed limit of less than 30mph.

The MS said: “The one thing that strikes me about politicians making decisions in Wales that are foreign to what the people of Wales want is the 20mph speed limit across the whole of Wales. Wales, where a petition from half a million individuals, unprecedented in the history of the Senedd, signed up to say ‘we believe this should be outside schools, hospitals and care homes, sensitive locations, but this national speed limit is devastating for economy’.”

He added: “It really focused people’s imagination and thinking about where these decisions are being made, for the first time, in many cases.”