WITH current MP Douglas Ross known for having multiple jobs, there’s one issue the SNP candidate bidding to win in Moray at the next UK election is clear on.
If he wins the contest, Graham Leadbitter says being an MP will be his "sole focus".
“I am currently a councillor and it would be my intention to stand down from the council following a successful election campaign,” he said.
The campaign for Leadbitter, a former leader of Moray Council, to win this key target for the SNP is swinging into action long before the date for the General Election has been confirmed.
It’s one area of the country which is guaranteed to see a change whenever that vote happens.
Scottish Tory leader Ross (below) – who won by only around 500 votes over the SNP in 2019 - has previously said he is not planning to run again.
Boundary changes mean the seat will also now be known as Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey, bringing in eastern areas of the Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey constituency which has been held by the SNP since 2015.
Leadbitter told the Sunday National: “I think people are really now seeing Douglas Ross for what he is – he is a populist politician who blows in the wind.
“He doesn’t have a principled position and that is something that he has become more and more exposed on.”
He added: “We’ve had several years now with the Conservative Scottish leader as the MP in Moray and in the other part of the new seat, we have excellent representation from Drew Hendry in Westminster.
“My objective is essentially to provide that excellent representation right across the whole of the new seat and to reject the austerity of the Tory party and the frankly offensive policies that the Tories have brought forward in the past few years, that have resulted in a cost of living crisis that affects every single household in the area.”
Leadbitter said the first campaign leaflets were being delivered and that would be ramped up over the coming weeks, as well as activities such as door knocking to canvass voters.
He said the focus would be on issues such as the cost of living crisis and highlighting a lack of public spending from Westminster – and that independence would be a major part of his campaign.
“The only way that can change is for Scotland to have the full and normal powers of an independent country and that’s absolutely front and centre,” he said.
“In areas like Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey, we have serious challenges with the workforce in the hospitality sector and in the care sector.
“That is driven by Brexit – Brexit was an appalling decision that was not what Scotland wanted and it certainly wasn’t what people in this area wanted either and it is having a huge negative impact on people across the region.”
The Tory contender hoping to succeed Ross is Moray Council leader Kathleen Robertson.
Meanwhile, the SNP could potentially face losing pro-independence votes to the Scottish Greens, who have selected Moray councillor Draeyke van der Horn as their candidate for the seat.
Asked about this challenge, Leadbitter said: “I think, democratically, people are obviously entitled to put up candidates where they choose.
“We’ll fight our own campaign, we believe we have strong arguments, not just the independence argument but we have a strong approach on environmental issues as well.
“I don’t believe it is a particular problem for us – we will just fight our own campaign and take those positions to the public.”
Asked what will be the biggest challenge of the General Election in the face of polls suggesting support for the SNP has slipped, Leadbitter said one would be “simply getting the vote out”.
“People are clearly fed up with the corrosive politics that we see from Westminster,” he said.
“Getting people to vote in the General Election is harder than it has been previously so we need to make sure our own supporters are motivated to go out and vote and that we encourage that and support that.”
He added that it would be also vital to make sure people fully understand new voter ID requirements that were brought in by the Tory government.
“The voter ID requirements that have been brought in for this Westminster election are highly regressive and should never have happened," he said.
"But they are there and we need to make sure in our campaign that people are fully aware of that so that they don’t lose their opportunity to vote."
It’s early in the campaign, with the timing of the election still unknown - but Leadbitter is optimistic about the SNP’s chances of taking the seat from the Tories.
“The polls look positive for this area – a recent poll had the SNP winning the seat,” he said.
“We certainly don’t take that for granted though and we need to absolutely make sure we speak to as many people as possible between now and whenever the election takes place, that we get our message across and do that comprehensively and on the day we get folk out to vote.”
