The 2016 Holyrood elections offer the Conservatives the chance to be “the voice of the quiet majority” who rejected independence, Scottish leader Ruth Davidson has said.
She told the UK party conference in Manchester that the May vote presents a “huge opportunity” as she set out plans to target the regional list seats at the Scottish Parliament.
Ms Davidson addressed delegates ahead of Prime Minister David Cameron’s speech.
She wants those who voted against independence in the 2014 referendum to cast their second vote in support of her party, arguing it is “the intelligent vote for the union”.
She has also called for supporters who backed other unionist parties at the general election in a bid to stop the SNP to return to the Tories.
Voters will elect 73 constituency MSPs with the first-past-the-post system and use their second vote to elect 56 regional list MSPs by an additional member system.
Only three of the 15 seats currently held by the Tories are constituency seats.
She said: “It’s just seven months before we go back to the polls again in Scotland. At this election, the Scottish Conservatives have a huge opportunity.”
She added: “I believe we have the chance to appeal right across the board – to be the voice of the two million Scots who want to keep our country together.
“In May, many Scottish Conservatives voted tactically, supporting other pro-UK parties in the hope of stopping the SNP.
“I can tell you, there are two reasons why this will not happen next year.
“Firstly, because Labour and the Lib Dems now seem embarrassed by their support of our union. And secondly because next year every single vote counts.
“As the head of our campaign, I have made it clear to my team that I want to target the regional list vote next year.
“For so long as the SNP refuses to rule out another referendum, our message for voters looking to cast that second vote is clear.
“If you’re one of the two million people who voted no in last year’s referendum, use it as your intelligent vote for the union.”
Ms Davidson told delegates that while fighting elections was exciting, the party should not forget what it is fighting for.
“I don’t want us to be just the party of the technocrat. The grudging vote of competence,” she said.
“I want us to be the party of the thinkers, the dreamers, the reformers and the visionaries too.
“The zeal of the missionary, the courage of the pioneer, the ambition to lift our eyes to the horizon and say ‘there’s a new Jerusalem we want to build and we will work towards it every day’.”
Labour’s shadow Scottish Secretary Ian Murray said: “Ruth Davidson had the chance to back 350,000 working families in Scotland by calling for a halt to the Tory tax credit cuts.
“People in Scotland won’t forget that when push came to shove Ruth Davidson sided with David Cameron rather than working families.”
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: “Ruth Davidson’s party have done more damage to the union since the referendum than Alex Salmond managed in the last decade.
“People should not be fooled. The Tories are not the party of the union. They are the party of massive cuts to tax credits that hurt working families. They are the party of immigration scaremongering. That is what Ruth Davidson is asking people to vote for.”