Tories warn any vote for Farage's Reform party could let the SNP win

• Several of the Reform Party candidates have previously backed independence
• Polling shows party's support has now risen to eight per cent across Scotland

Pro-Independence Reform ­UK candidates are ‘helping’ Nationalist MPs win seats, the Conservatives have warned, as a poll shows one in five Scots will vote tactically to keep rivals out.

The Tories, who are facing tight battles to keep their six seats across Scotland, repeated their warning that Nigel Farage’s Westminster hopefuls actually want to ‘help the SNP’.

It follows reports that a number of Reform candidates have a history of turning against the Union. Polling expert Sir John Curtice has also said the popularity of Reform ‘is a big threat to Conservative hopes of retaining their six seats in Scotland’.

Polling from Norstat for the Sunday Times found the party’s popularity increased by one point to 8 per cent in Scotland, while support for the Tories dropped by one point to 13 per cent. However, it found that pro-Union voters were more likely to choose whichever party would keep out the SNP.

Scottish Conservative party chairman Craig Hoy said: ‘The Scottish Conservatives are ready to defeat the SNP in key seats up and down Scotland where it’s a straight fight between us and the Nationalists.

Nigel Farage has made no secret of the fact he wishes to damage the Conservatives' standing during the election campaign

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‘If everyone who wants to beat the SNP votes for the Scottish Conservatives, we can do it and finally end their demands for independence.

‘But the result will be so close in many seats. Even a few votes for Reform could elect an SNP MP by the back door.

‘We know several Reform candidates are pro-independence, so it may well be that helping the SNP is what they really want.’

He added: ‘On Thursday, in key seats, vote Scottish Conservative to guarantee the best possible chance of beating the SNP.’

Throughout the campaign, it has emerged that a number of Reform candidates have backed independence. Richard Tice, the party’s chairman who visited Scotland last week, said he is unaware of how many of his party back the SNP’s cause.

Gordon and Buchan candidate, Kris Callander, and Dundee Central contender, Vicky McCann, supported the SNP’s independence campaign.

Reform’s deputy chairman, David Kirkwood, who is standing in Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, also backed them.

Professor Curtice said that small moves towards anti-Tory tactical voting ‘could prove fatal to the party’s hopes of maintaining its Scottish representation’. However, the poll results suggest 49 per cent of those who plan to vote tactically are doing so to defeat the SNP; the rest, around 39 per cent, are doing so in an effort to unseat the Conservatives.

Former Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May, who campaigned in Perth on Saturday, said: ‘The doorsteps I’ve been on, both in England and so far in Scotland, don’t suggest the degree of support for Reform that the opinion polls suggest. Reform is not a conservative party.’

Mr Tice, who stepped aside from Reform’s leadership to let Mr Farage take the top post, has said ‘the whole point of democracy is the voters have a choice’, while also stating ‘the SNP is done’ with independence.

Mr Callander said in an interview he had not always been a ‘hardline Unionist’, while Ms McCann branded the 2014 ballot ‘corrupt’.

Gordon and Buchan is among the tightest of seats between the SNP and the Tories, with Tory MSP for the North East, Douglas Lumsden, warning that a ‘handful of votes could make the difference’.

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