Exclusive:Lib Dems aim to 'deprive' SNP of Holyrood majority with 10 target seats and reclaim Highlands
The Lib Dems believe they can deny the SNP a Holyrood majority that John Swinney insists will spark another independence referendum.
Liberal Democrats can “deprive” John Swinney of an elusive majority as they set sights on seizing flagship Highland constituencies from the SNP, party leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has claimed.
Mr Cole-Hamilton will formally set out the Scottish Lib Dems’ 10 target seats in his spring conference speech in Edinburgh today.
It is understood the Lib Dems have their sights on Orkney, Shetland, Caithness Sutherland and Ross, Skye Lochaber and Badenoch, Inverness and Nairn and Argyle and Bute in the Highlands.
The party is also targeting keeping hold of Mr Cole-Hamilton’s Edinburgh Western seat, the newly-created adjacent constituency of Edinburgh Northern, former party leader Willie Rennie’s North East Fife seat - while challenging for the Strathkelvin and Bearsden seat in East Dunbartonshire.
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Every one of the target seats the Lib Dems are hoping to secure is currently represented by the SNP, alongside their currently-held constituencies and the new Edinburgh seat. It is understood that no other constituencies are in the grasp of the Lib Dems above the 10 targets, but the party is hoping to increase its number of MSPs by boosting its vote share on the regional list ballot.
Speaking to The Scotsman, Mr Cole-Hamilton said the mood in his party was “buoyant” heading into May’s election.
“We’re really optimistic”, he said. “We’re in a better shape than we’ve been in a really long time.”
He added: “While I’m confident we are there or thereabout in those 10 constituencies already, it’s in the second vote, that peach-coloured regional ballot paper that I think we stand to really mop up in.”
Mr Cole-Hamilton argued that his party is “really well positioned right across the Highlands”.
He said: “We can deprive the SNP of the route to a majority by nipping at their heels in the constituencies. We can then mop up on that second peach coloured regional ballot.
“We hope to run the tables on the Highlands - from Shetland to Argyle and Bute.”
READ MORE: SNP in touching distance of Holyrood majority with Reform poised to edge pass Labour, new poll finds
The Lib Dems leader put down his boost in the Highlands, in part, to the “Central Belt bias of the SNP has seen those communities suffer”.
SNP MSP Emma Roddick said :“Polls show the SNP is within touching distance of a majority and that’s thanks to John Swinney’s strong leadership which is relentlessly focussed on our NHS, the cost-of-living crisis and offering hope through a fresh start with independence.
“The SNP is the only party that is on Scotland’s side, putting Scotland’s priorities first at each and every turn – that’s what’s on the ballot in May.”
After years of being tied to the unpopularity of the UK coalition government under Nick Clegg, Mr Cole-Hamilton admitted that “for the first time in a long time, people are voting Lib Dem because they want to”, adding that voters “recognise that we’re the only party with a positive vision for how to get things done”.
He added: “For the first time in a very long time, we have that credibility back.
“People can see that we’re not tainted by the scandals of the chaos of recent experiences of government with the SNP, the Conservatives and of course the Labour party now struggle with.”
Before the SNP entered office in 2007, the Lib Dems were in government with Labour from the inception of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Mr Cole-Hamilton has told The Scotsman he would like his party to, one day, return to power.
He said: “I didn’t get into politics just to send angry press releases from a position of perpetual opposition. I got into politics to get stuff done, to change the laws in big and liberal ways.
“It’s so much harder to do that from a place of opposition. I don’t fear power. It’s important to seize the levers of government if given the opportunity.”
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