Ross: If Labour are back on the pitch they play for Team Sturgeon

Douglas Ross will accuse Scottish Labour of “playing for Team Sturgeon” at Holyrood, while acknowledging 2022 was a difficult year for his own party.

The Scottish Conservative leader will attack Labour’s voting record during a keynote speech in Edinburgh on Friday.

He will say Anas Sarwar’s party is part of a “cosy Holyrood consensus” on issues like gender recognition reform, the Hate Crime Act, rent controls and North Sea jobs.

Mr Ross will admit that turbulence among his Conservative colleagues at Westminster has hurt the party across the country.

Scottish Labour pulled ahead of the Tories in polls for Holyrood voting intention during much of 2022.

“They see failure stacked upon failure and question how any government can survive it.

“Yet Labour are an opposition to the SNP in name only – they only offer more of the same.

“Anas Sarwar has claimed that he has brought his party back on to the pitch, yet Labour are now playing for Team Sturgeon.”

He will also attack UK Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, saying he “looks to Nicola Sturgeon’s Government for inspiration”.

“Scotland will continue on the path of decline if our choice is between an SNP Government and a Labour Party who will work together and offer the same solutions to the challenges our nation faces.

“There needs to be a viable alternative to the cosy Holyrood consensus.

“Now is the time for the Scottish Conservatives to get back to the task of building Scotland’s real alternative to the SNP – because only we can.”

The Moray MP will also praise Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s leadership, saying the Tories must now work to regain voters’ trust.

“Our focus, as a UK and Scottish party, must be on working to re-earn trust.

“Rishi Sunak’s first couple of months in office have shown a return to the quiet competency that voters expect from us.”

But shadow Scotland secretary Ian Murray said: “It is going to take more than a few new year’s resolutions and a badly delivered speech to make flip-flop Douglas Ross politically relevant.

“His first resolution should be to apologise for backing Liz Truss, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak while the whole country looked on in horror.

“As we face another year of economic chaos, Scotland knows that the Conservative Party remains the biggest threat to the union.

“We know that with the Tories it is always party first, country second – and people are sick of it.

“Across Scotland and the UK, people are crying out for a change, but only a Labour government can boot the Tories out of Downing Street and deliver it.”

SNP MSP Paul McLennan also hit back at the Tories, saying: “Douglas Ross only needs to take a look in the mirror to see which party is in cahoots with Labour, given that it was himself and Anas Sarwar who presided over grubby deals between Labour and the Tories after last year’s council elections.

“The Tories and Labour are also joined at the hip in their anti-democratic blocking of Scotland’s right to choose our own future, just as they were back in 2014.

“Worst of all, they are cheek-by-jowl on Brexit – each is as bad as the other in ignoring what Scotland voted for and what is good for our economy and society.

“The Scottish Tory leader also needs to reflect on why it’s his party that so often finds themselves isolated on the political stage, rather than pointing the finger at everyone else.”