Theresa May unveils bold plea to oust Scottish National Party with 5-seat hitlist to boost Brexit plans as Tories double support up North in just two years
Mrs May will call on Scots to give the Conservative Party their votes for the first time in 40 years
THERESA May unveils her next election land grab today with a bold plea to Scottish voters to help her oust veteran SNP MPs.
The PM makes her first campaign trip to the Scots nationalist bastion of Aberdeenshire this morning.
The stunning bid to redraw the electoral map comes after a fresh opinion poll yesterday confirmed the Tories’ stunning resurgence north of the border is still mushrooming.
Mrs May will call on Scots to give her their votes for the first time in 40 years to keep the United Kingdom together and help her with Brexit talks.
At a campaign rally, Mrs May will say: “My message to the people of Scotland today is clear: if you vote for me it will strengthen my hand in the Brexit negotiations.
“It will strengthen the union, strengthen the economy and together the UK and Scotland will flourish.
“Because when Scotland is flourishing, the rest of the United Kingdom is flourishing too.”
Mrs May’s Scotland visit is her THIRD foray into traditional enemy held heartlands this week alone.
On Tuesday, she campaigned in the Labour bastion of South Wales, and went on to hold a rally in another of the deeply split party’s formerly rock solid cities, Leeds, on Thursday.
The PM’s visits reveal the sheer scale of her ambition for a landslide majority from the June 8 poll.
The Conservatives won only one MP in Scotland at the last general election in 2015.
But a new YouGov survey for The Times yesterday put the party on 28% of support north of the border - almost double its 15% standing two years ago.
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The SNP is down 9 points from 2015 to 41%, and Labour down 6 points to just 18%.
As The Sun revealed this week, the Tories are closely targeting five seats on June 8 which they think they can steal off the SNP.
The jewel of the crop is Moray in the north east of Scotland - the constituency of the SNP’s Westminster leader Angus Robertson.
Taking it would be a major decapitation and inflict a big blow on First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s independence hopes.
The other four are Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, Banff and Buchan, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine and Perth and North Perthshire.
The last one is held by another SNP big wig, its Shadow Leader of the House Pete Wishart.
Ousting Mr Wishart - former keyboard player of Scots rock band Runrig – would be another major coup for the party.
Some party hopefuls think the Tories could win as many as eight Scottish MPs, with much of their rise credited to punchy new Scots Tories leader Ruth Davidson.
The SNP held onto Berwickshire in 2015 with a majority of just 328.
Banff and Buchan was the only Scottish seat to vote Leave in last year’s EU referendum.
It is home to anti-EU fishing hubs Fraserburgh and Peterhead.
The Cabinet source added: “On paper those SNP majorities look massive, but the plates have moved since 2015 in a very big way.”
They went on: “We’ve got decent candidates, plenty of money and finally voting Tory in Scotland will not feel like a waste of time”.