Scottish Tories seek Rishi Sunak’s help to convince voters to reject independence

Comment follows Scots Tory leader saying PM faces ‘uphill battle’ to win votes north of border

Senior Scottish Conservatives want the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, sent north to convince the electorate to reject independence amid doubts about Boris Johnson’s powers of persuasion.

Earlier this week the new Scottish Tory leader, Douglas Ross, said the prime minister had an “uphill battle” to win over more voters north of the border.

In just eight months’ time Scots go to the polls in a crucial election that could help decide the future of the United Kingdom.

Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party are on course for victory, in a vote her party argues would be a mandate for another independence referendum.

Mr Johnson has consistently ruled out another vote on Scotland’s place within the UK, alongside declarations of his love for the United Kingdom.  

But he has come under pressure, including from former cabinet minister Andrea Leadsom, who this week called on him to “do more” to prevent Scots wanting to leave the Union.  

Senior figures within the Scottish Tories want to see Mr Sunak more prominently pushing the argument that the Scots should not leave the rest of the UK.

One said: “We want to see more of the chancellor in Scotland, pressing home the message about finances. That’s the key message.”

Some within the party argue that replicating the Treasury’s furlough scheme, which paid the wages of thousands of workers in Scotland at the height of the coronavirus, would have been difficult for an independent country.    

Mr Sunak’s easy charm and likeability are seen as key assets, even as he faces a difficult few months.

The Treasury is braced for a rash of redundancies as the flagship furlough scheme comes to an end this month.

But Mr Sunak is seen as a very different political beast to the “cold” George Osborne, who made economic arguments against independence when he ran the Treasury in the run-up to the 2014 independence referendum.

“Rishi is very popular, very disarming,” one source said. “People seem to like him.”  

In the run-up to the Tory leadership contest last year, some Scottish Tories joked that Mr Johnson was so hated north of the border that they had set up an anti-Boris campaign, nicknamed “Operation Arse”.  

But others reject the idea that he is disliked by Scots, claiming that while there was a negative attitude on many doorsteps during last year’s general election it was mainly directed at former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and not Mr Johnson.