Kemi Badenoch: Scots Tories are the ONLY common sense party at Holyrood

Kemi Badenoch has declared that the Scottish Conservatives are the only ‘common sense’ party at Holyrood and condemned the performance of Nigel Farage ’s Reform UK. The Conservative leader mocked Reform’s Scottish leader Lord Malcolm Offord and his MSPs and said that ‘Scotland deserves better’ during a speech to a Scottish Tory event at her party’s conference in Birmingham . She also said that the recent by-election success in Aberdeen South shows the Tories are ‘coming back’. In an interview with the Mail, Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay also condemned the ‘amateurism’ of Reform UK and said his party is the ‘real opposition’ at Holyrood despite its depleted numbers. Addressing a Scottish Conservative reception, Mrs Badenoch said the Aberdeen South by-election result, which saw Tory candidate Douglas Lumsden trounce the SNP with nearly 50 per cent of the vote, was ‘something special’ for the party. She said: ‘Aberdeen South, more than anything else, proved that the Conservative Party is coming back. Kemi Badenoch called the Scottish Conservatives the only 'common sense' party at Holyrood ‘Do you remember when people were asking us to do a deal with Reform? “Stand down in Makerfield and then they’ll stand down in Aberdeen and maybe you can win”. If we had done that, that win would have been tainted. ‘No-one would have ever believed that Douglas could have done it on his own. But instead we stood our ground, fought for our values, fought for the economy, for people’s jobs in the oil and gas sector and he got 50 per cent of the vote.’ She said MSPs ‘have to listen to John Swinney open his mouth and talk a load of rubbish’, and said: ‘There is only one party of common sense in the Scottish Parliament and it is the Conservative Party. ‘I’m not going to pretend that the result we had in May were not difficult – they were difficult because we had a Reform party pretending that it was the second coming. ‘And what have we got? Malcolm Offord still trying to find out where the loos are in the Scottish Parliament. He doesn’t know which way he is going. ‘What we have to remember is that there are people who are conservatives in Scotland who feel that we cannot win, but what Aberdeen South has shown is that we can win.’ Mrs Badenoch also doubled down on her controversial claim in an interview with BBC West Midlands that Edinburgh rather than Birmingham is the UK’s second city, saying: ‘Birmingham may have more people but Edinburgh is the second city.’ She added: ‘It doesn’t matter whether we are talking about oil and gas in Aberdeen or we are talking about financial services in Edinburgh or we are talking about farming in the Borders, I want the people of Scotland to know that we are there and we are fighting for them.’ Mrs Badenoch also told delegates: ‘I cannot tell you just how much I love Scotland. ‘Scotland deserves better and we are going to give them better.’ Russell Findlay said the Scottish Conservatives are 'ready for the fight' Mr Findlay gave his third address to his party’s UK conference just over a week after he marked two years in the job as Scottish Tory leader. In an interview with the Mail, he acknowledged that the party had a ‘really difficult’ Scottish election campaign in May but said there are now ‘really encouraging signs of recovery’ and he and Mrs Badenoch are ‘ready for the fight’. He claimed that Reform’s successes in May’s election, when it had 17 MSPs elected compared to 12 for the Tories, was a ‘very good day for John Swinney’s SNP and a very bad day for the effective scrutiny of the Government’. He said: ‘We are a smaller group but if we were boxers then the Conservative challengers would remain pound for pound by far the most effective fighter in the ring.’ On Reform’s performance at Holyrood, he said: ‘Seeing Malcolm Offord rambling his way through FMQs, John Swinney goes through this weekly exercise with a smile on his face and I like to think that when it comes to me questioning Mr Swinney we will continue to be laser-focused and continue to put him on the spot by asking the right questions.’ He said Lord Offord’s parliament contributions have been ‘amateurish’ and said Reform’s MSPs ‘aren’t holding the SNP’s feet to the fire’. Mr Findlay said: ‘When people see what Reform look like in action, and realise that it is largely smoke and mirrors, talk and bluster with no real competency and ability the more they will see us as being the grown-ups and the credible opponents to the SNP. ‘Any reasonable observer right now, looking at the period since the election, would say that the Scottish Conservatives have been and will continue to be the real opposition.’ He also described his own MSPs as a ‘dynamic dozen’ that will stand up to the SNP on key issues, and added: ‘I think it’s evident that we are the real deal, we are the professionals, we are the grown-ups, we are good at articulating our point and we are good at unpicking the complete nonsense we hear from so many other parties.’