SNP leadership candidate Ash Regan claims voters in the Scottish border back the Tories because they watch English ITV instead of STV as hopefuls vying to replace Nicola Sturgeon brace for first televised clash TONIGHT

• Regan suggested TV channel might have had an impact on voting in the area 
• All three Scottish constituencies bordering England return Conservative MPs

A leading SNP politician vying to become Scotland’s First Minister has suggested people in the Borders vote Tory because they are forced to watch English television. 

Ash Regan, an outsider in the race to replace Nicola Sturgeon, told a party hustings last night that the very south of Scotland receives Carlisle-based ITV Border instead of STV.

She suggested that this might have had an impact on voting patterns in the area. All three Scottish constituencies bordering England – Dumfries and Galloway, Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, and Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, return Conservative MPs to the Commons.

Her remarks came ahead of the first live televised three-way debate between Ms Regan, Kate Forbes and Humza Yousaf on STV tonight.

Speaking in Dumfries Ms Regan, who is an MSP in Edinburgh, said:  ‘I think in the rest of Scotland they don’t realise that we don’t actually have STV. I think when I say that to people, they’re like ”oh don’t you why now?” And actually I’m not sure how that came about.

‘But I’m going to look into that because I do wonder if there’s a correlation here between the media that we’re getting in this part of the world and the voting pattern.

Ash Regan, an outsider in the race to replace Nicola Sturgeon, told a party hustings last night that the very south of Scotland receives Carlisle-based ITV Border instead of STV. 

Ms Forbes suggested that it could take Scotland a decade after independence to become better off than if it stayed in the UK.

Mr Yousaf told the hustings he would be not just Scotland’s first minister but ‘first activist’ for independence.

‘So I’m going to look into that and see how we got to that stage. Now we have to remember the media are doing their job and I think we maybe as Scottish nationalists feel there’s a malicious intent behind some of it and I think there sometimes is but not always.’

The STV debate will take place in Glasgow at 9pm this evening, and marks the first time the trio of candidates has done-head-to-head on live television. 

Ahead of it, Ms Forbes suggested that it could take Scotland a decade after independence to become better off than if it stayed in the UK.

Mr Yousaf told the hustings he would be not just Scotland’s first minister but ‘first activist’ for independence.

Ms Reagan pledged to ‘relight the fires’ of the cross-party Yes campaign that operated in the run up to the 2014 referendum and would ‘reach out to the wider movement’.

She told the hustings that she had felt a ‘sense of grief’ after Scots had voted to stay in the UK in 2014. 

‘I don’t want us to be thinking about that past referendum and thinking we’ve missed the boat, and that we have got to keep waiting. I want to get us there as fast as possible,’ she added.

But to achieve that she said the party needs to ‘change direction’ and to ‘act differently’.

The STV debate will take place in Glasgow at 9pm this evening, and marks the first time the trio of candidates has done-head-to-head on live television.

Ms Regan said: ‘I don’t think we can keep going the way we have been over the last few years, we need a different plan and we need to put that into action.’

She said under her leadership the first line on any SNP manifesto would state that a vote for the party would mean ‘Scotland would be voting for Edinburgh and Westminster in a room’ to begin independence negotiations.

She told party members: ‘The referendum is not the gold standard here, the ballot box is the gold standard, and that is what we need to progress towards.’

Ms Regan said other nations would recognise this, saying: ‘International law is pragmatic and there is no question of the UK not recognising this and coming to the table.’

Her comments came as Ms Forbes, who returned from maternity leave after the birth of her daughter last summer to run to be Scotland’s next first minister, stressed the need to use ‘each and every opportunity to make the case for independence’.

She told the hustings: ‘We need to set out in the first 10 years of an independent Scotland how we will be wealthier, greener, fairer. People need to see it.

‘Independence is not an abstract constitutional term we use in arguments, its about real people, real lives and how we ensure Scotland is just as wealthy, just as green just as fair as our comparator countries.’

She said: ‘We have got all that it takes in Scotland to be incredibly successful.

‘We would be one of the richest countries ever to be independent, we have got all that it takes.’

She told the hustings: ‘Scotland can’t afford not to be independent. We will get there with the right leader, the right competent focus on track record of delivery and ultimately ensuring we are persuading people.’

As part of that, in what could be seen a swipe at Mr Yousaf, the Scottish Health Secretary, she stressed the need to ‘make sure the NHS is on a stable footing for the next decade’.

Mr Yousaf, meanwhile, said that independence is ‘inevitable’, adding that the days of the ‘unequal union’ between Scotland and the rest of the UK ‘are numbered’.

He said the leadership contest was about ‘who is going to deliver independence’, saying: ‘I believe I have what it takes.

‘I believe I have the experience, I believe I am able to unite our movement, I believe I am able to inspire people to the vision of independence.’

While he said the SNP had ‘governed well’ in its nearly 16 years in power in Scotland, he said: ‘We must build on that progressive agenda that has won us so much support so far.’

He told the hustings if he was to become the next SNP leader ‘every single election we fight, including the next general election’ will be based on a demand for Holyrood to have the powers to hold a second independence ballot.

‘I am not just looking to be the leader of the party of first minister of the country, I want to be our first activist.

‘I want to come with community to community, town to town, village to village, doorstep to doorstep, persuading the people of this country that our best future is as an independent nation.’

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