RISHI Sunak is to visit Aberdeen on Friday to address the Scottish Tory conference as his party continues to slide in the polls.
The Prime Minister’s visit comes as new polling from Survation, commissioned by Quantum Communications, predicted the Tories would win just 15% of the votes in Scotland – the lowest vote share since Liz Truss was prime minister.
Sunak (below) is expected to use his speech to insist that only the Tories will protect and promote the North Sea oil industry.
Speaking ahead of the visit, the PM said: “Scotland has an abundance of ingenuity, talent and hard-working people, people who are at the core of our United Kingdom’s success.
“That is why my government remains steadfast in its support of the 200,000 high quality UK jobs that depend on our North Sea oil, gas and energy sector.”
A number of senior Tories are expected to appear at the conference, including Scottish Secretary Alister Jack and Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove.
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Meanwhile, Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross (below) reacted to the news of the latest poll by telling the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland it wasn’t what he was hearing on the doorsteps.
He added that people “want to send a message to Humza Yousaf and his failing nationalist government that they are not focused on the right priorities”.
The polling from Survation predicted the SNP would return 38% of the vote in Scotland, while Labour were five points behind on 33%.
Ross added that he was “very optimistic about a good General Election for the Scottish Conservatives later on this year”.
Asked why the Scottish Government were not “doing worse” in the polls given Ross said they were failing, the Scottish Tory leader replied: “Well I would say let’s wait and see what the General Election result is.
“If we look at actual elections that we’ve had since the turn of the year, certainly in two of the by-elections in Dunblane and down in Jedburgh, the Scottish Conservatives beat the SNP and we’ve got two of our newest Scottish Conservative councillors here at conference.
“If you look at Jedburgh, we got almost 60% of the vote there, because people wanted to send a message to the SNP and they wanted to elect a strong local representative in John Bathgate who will stand up for his local area and it was a great Scottish Conservative win.
“I’m looking at the actual results rather than some of these polls.”
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