New Scottish Conservatives leader Russell Findlay does not want to spend his career “only talking about the union”, he told activists and delegates in Birmingham.
He also claimed Scottish voters backed a Westminster block on gender recognition reforms north of the border, while Welsh Conservatives leader Andrew RT Davies said Cardiff Bay’s rollout of default 20mph limits in urban areas had made people think about how decisions are made.
Mr Findlay took up his new role in Holyrood on Friday, two days before the UK-wide party’s conference, where he and Mr Davies spoke at a panel discussion on The Future of the Union.
“I do think, while the SNP are in a terrible state and don’t look they’re going to improve their lot any time soon, we cannot be complacent,” the party leader said.
The ruling party in the Scottish Parliament saw its House of Commons tally of 48 MPs in 2019 reduced to nine over the summer.
“Polling still shows quite a significant number of people in Scotland do believe that breaking up the United Kingdom is the right thing to do.”
Mr Findlay added: “I don’t want to spend my time as a politician only talking about the union.
“The Scottish Conservative Party rightly stood up against the SNP year after year and to great effect and to our benefit electorally, but now, going forward, we need to put that to one side 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 the best interests of Scotland.”
Mr Davies urged his party to “make sure that we’re fighting the separatists of any part of this country”.
He said: “Any nationalist party has not made that economic argument, whether it be in Wales, whether it be in Scotland or Northern Ireland. They’ll make the one argument about independence and this utopia, this mirage that they want to create, to the voters.
“But the reality is when it comes to the economics of it, all four parts of the union working together benefit from being one identity, one banner, one United Kingdom, sharing the resources of the union.”
Turning to the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, which introduced gender self-identification without a medical diagnosis, Mr Findlay described the UK government’s decision to block it as one of his party’s “one of the greatest recent triumphs”.
The proposed law had been supported by MSPs in December 2022, and aimed to simplify the process trans people go through to get a gender recognition certificate in their acquired gender.
But former Scotland secretary Alister Jack used a section 35 order to prevent it from becoming law, and suggested it would interfere with UK-wide equalities law.
“One of the greatest recent triumphs of the UK Conservative government was when Alister Jack, the former Scottish secretary at the time, and Rishi Sunak had the bravery to oppose the legislation that was passed in Edinburgh, despite the best efforts of the Scottish Conservative Party,” Mr Findlay said.
“And they said no, because it would’ve impacted on UK-wide equality law.
“And when the SNP did their usual grievance – ‘big bad Westminster’s now dictating and disrespecting Scottish democracy’ – the people of Scotland were on the side of the UK Conservative government.
“They fully supported that block and long may it continue.”
Mr Davies referred to a Senedd petition, with 469,571 signatories, which called on the Welsh Government to reverse its rollout of default 20mph limits in urban areas.
The signatories branded it a “foolish idea” and claimed “no one is driving at 20mph” through St Brides Major, a village near Bridgend with a slower-than-30mph limit.
The MS said: “The one thing that stands out to me about politicians making decisions in Wales that is alien to what the people of Wales want was the speed limit of 20mph across the length and breadth of Wales, where a petition of half a million individuals, unheard of in the Senedd’s history, signed up to say ‘we believe that this should be outside schools, hospitals and care homes, sensitive sites, but this national speed limit is devastating for the economy’.”
He added: “It really did focus people’s imagination and thought as to where these decisions are being taken, for the first time, in many instances.”
