The Scottish Conservative leader, Douglas Ross, has backtracked on comments he made suggesting Conservative voters could vote Labour at the next general election in seats where Keir Starmer’s party had a better chance of winning against the SNP. Ross, who has said he will step down at the next election, had told the Telegraph that unionist voters should consider putting country above party and “do what is best for the country” and support “the strongest candidate to beat the SNP”. He told the paper that Rishi Sunak and Starmer should “look a bit beyond their own narrow party agenda” if their priority was to keep the union together. “I will always encourage Scottish Conservative voters to vote Scottish Conservative,” he said. “But I think generally the public can see, and they want the parties to accept, that where there is the strongest candidate to beat the SNP, you get behind that candidate.” However, he appeared to backtrack on the comments in an interview with Channel 4’s Ciaran Jenkins on Sunday evening after they caused anger within the UK party – and it has since emerged he did not discuss his stance with Sunak. Ross told Channel 4 News: “I’m very clear I want Scottish Conservative voters to vote Scottish Conservative, but we know there are many seats across Scotland in the north, the north-east and the central belt such as East Renfrewshire where the Scottish Conservatives are the challengers to the SNP.” Ross, who has been leader of the Scottish Conservatives since 2020, then suggested other parties should vote for the Tories to see the SNP “losing seats” across Scotland. However, the presenter pointed out that Labour are second to the SNP in more seats than the Conservatives. Ross said: “I haven’t discussed this directly with the prime minister, but we have discussed where we are going to be focusing our efforts in the forthcoming general election whenever that is called.” Asked earlier about Ross’s comments to the Telegraph, a Tory party spokesperson said: “This is emphatically not the view of the Conservative party. We want people to vote for Conservative candidates wherever they are standing as that’s the best way to keep Labour and the SNP out.” Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, told the Telegraph he rejected any tactical voting pact. “This sounds like the Scottish Conservatives are accepting they’re going to lose the next general election,” he said.