Nigel Farage is a threat to the Union, warns Kemi Badenoch

The UK Tory leader hit out at Reform during a speech at the Scottish party conference in Edinburgh

Nigel Farage is a threat to the Union and his party will "let the SNP in", UK Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has warned.

Mrs Badenoch told the Scottish Tory conference in Edinburgh that Mr Farage "would be fine with the SNP winning another five years in power". She said the Scottish people deserved better than the Nationalists.

Hitting out at Reform – which claimed on Friday to now have 11,000 members in Scotland – she said the union between Scotland and England is “just not that important” to Mr Farage’s party.

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch | PA

"We know that when it really matters, like on gender or free speech or taxes, Labour will fold and vote with the SNP," she told party members. "And as for Reform, the Union is just not that important to them.

"In April this year, Nigel Farage said he would be fine with the SNP winning another five years in power.

"He’s fine with another five years of higher bills, longer waiting lists, declining school standards, gender madness, and ultimately, independence. Reform will vote to let the SNP in, Conservatives will only ever vote to get the Nationalists out."

Mr Farage previously told The Times he was “not that worried about the SNP”, adding: “Yes, they're going to have a resurgence. Scotland is not going to leave the United Kingdom. It's not going to happen in a month of Sundays. We're not doing a deal with Labour.”

Mrs Badenoch’s speech came just over a week after a Holyrood by-election in which the Tories came fourth, well behind Reform in third. Meanwhile, an opinion poll has suggested Mr Farage’s party could come second in next May’s Holyrood election.

The Tories have also suffered a string of defections, with more than a dozen councillors switching to Reform.

Speaking to journalists, Mrs Badenoch said she was “fine” with defections if they removed those who are not real Conservatives.

“Reform are not a centre-right party,” she said. “This is a party that is talking about nationalising oil and gas. This is a party that wants to increase benefits at a time when the benefits bill is so high.

“So if Nigel Farage is taking out of the Conservative Party the people who are not Conservatives, then I’m quite fine with that.”

Asked if she considered Mr Farage an active threat to the Union, she said: "If he wants the SNP to have another five years, then that is a threat to the Union, so yes.

“He doesn't seem to care about the Union. We are the Conservative and Unionist Party. It's a fundamental belief, as I said in our speech."

Elsewhere, she revealed she keeps in touch with Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay via WhatsApp. “It’s like a joint support group,” joked Mr Findlay. Mrs Badenoch added: “Your words, not mine.”

In her first speech to a Scottish Tory conference as the UK leader, Mrs Badenoch said the SNP “remains obsessed with breaking up our country” at the expense of issues such as education and health.

She accused the Nationalists of wasting millions of pounds on “independence propaganda” and failed ferry projects, while introducing new hate crime laws and pursuing controversial gender reforms.

Mrs Badenoch added: “So, we need to bring about their electoral defeat. Because the Scottish people deserve better.”

She said Mr Findlay “stands out at Holyrood because he’s not part of the cosy left-wing consensus of the SNP and Labour”.

In her speech, Mrs Badenoch accepted the Tories in power at Westminster “didn’t always get things right”.

But she insisted her election, coupled with Mr Findlay taking over the Scottish party last year, meant they are “under new leadership”.

Adding that she is “renewing this party”, she declared: “This speech isn’t about looking back. It’s about the future. Our future.”

Part of that “positive vision of the future” includes “standing up” for the North Sea oil and gas industry, she said.

Mrs Badenoch claimed that by increasing the energy profits levy – also known as the windfall tax – Labour is “killing the oil and gas industry”.

She said: “Frankly if it is allowed to remain in place until 2030, as is Labour’s current plan, there will be no industry left to tax.

“Thousands will have been made unemployed and all the while we import more gas from overseas – from the very same basin in which we are banned from drilling.”

She called on the UK Government to remove the energy profits levy, and said the Tories would also “scrap the ban on new licences” for oil and gas developments.

“We will champion our own industry,” Mrs Badenoch told supporters.

“We will let this great British, great Scottish industry thrive, grow and create jobs – ensuring our energy security for generations to come and making Scotland richer in the process.”

She also pledged the Tories will spend more on defence, saying this is crucial as “our world becomes even more dangerous”.

Citing conflict in the Middle East as well as in Ukraine, Mrs Badenoch said it “becomes even harder to understand why Labour didn’t use the spending review this week to set out a clear plan to get to 3 per cent on defence spending”.

The Tories, she insisted, will “stand by Scotland’s defence industry to build the security equipment and systems that keep us safe”.

Earlier, Mr Findlay told the BBC it would be a “complete act of national self-harm” not to continue drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea. He said Scotland should use its own oil, rather than relying on foreign imports.

Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said: “If Kemi Badenoch had any humility, she would apologise to people across Scotland for the economic chaos that her party caused and the financial misery they inflicted.”