IT’S hard to believe we are in the final week of the Scottish Parliament election campaign.

Many of you will have already voted by post and for those who are voting on Thursday, your minds are weighing up the impact your votes will have for this city and across Scotland.

This election is perhaps more crucial than any that has gone before it. Now I know readers will think politicians always say that, but Glaswegians have a clear choice on Thursday. You can vote for 100% focus on our recovery with the Scottish Conservatives or you can choose to take a wrecking ball to that recovery with another divisive independence referendum with the SNP.

For all their boasting about how they are going to win and take Scotland’s future into their hands, the SNP’s campaign messaging has become increasingly wild and incoherent. Just days ago we had one of their candidates Emma Harper incredibly claiming that a border with England would “create jobs”. Presumably she thinks the border guard jobs would make up for the billions in lost exports to the rest of the UK.

She was presumably just taking her lead from the thoughts of leader Nicola Sturgeon who claimed that the Northern Ireland protocol could represent a template for how an independent Scotland would trade with England.

What an absurd suggestion. Nicola Sturgeon has become rattled during this campaign because she hasn’t done any economic impact assessment on what independence would mean and she knows people are put off by the thought of a hard border with our closest neighbours.

Yet despite these lack of answers on so many major issues, Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP want to inflict another referendum on us at a time when we should all be focused on rebuilding our communities.

Your votes on Thursday can determine what we focus on in the next Scottish Parliament. I don’t want MSPs at Holyrood to be debating the SNP and their nationalist friends in the Greens obsession over breaking up our Union. I want our elected representatives to be focused on the day-to-day issues affecting communities here.

That is why I am proud that the Scottish Conservatives fully costed manifesto priorities our recovery from Covid, delivers increased funding for our NHS and plans to recruit 3000 teachers for our classrooms.

Policies like our £500 Retrain to Rebuild accounts for every adult and rapid retraining courses will not only help to protect jobs but help to create jobs of the future as well, along-

side our network of Job Security Councils to support employment needs in specific sectors.

Tackling climate change is going to be one of our biggest challenges going forward which is why I am proud we are proposing a new Circular Economy Bill to set new targets to reduce our raw material usage and we will also work closely with the UK Government to support the vital jobs in our oil and gas sector, which are of such importance to the wider Scottish economy.

How refreshing it would be after Thursday to have a Scottish Parliament to spend its debating time focused on those policies areas, rather than one that is paralysed by never-ending constitutional division and grievance.

No matter your party allegiance, if you want to stop an SNP majority, stop a fresh push for indyref2 and stop the SNP and other pro-independence parties putting a referendum over recovery, you must vote Scottish Conservative.

Use your peach party list vote to vote for the Scottish Conservatives and send a message against another divisive referendum.