RUTH Davidson will insist Scotland has passed "peak Nat" as she addresses the Scottish Conservative conference today. 

She will tell activists an SNP majority can be prevented at the Holyrood election on May 6, just as it was in 2016.

And she will call on pro-UK voters to unite and back the Tories to “derail" the SNP’s push for another referendum.

The Scottish Conservatives' virtual spring conference starts this afternoon and runs through to Monday.

Ms Davidson, her party's Holyrood leader, will say: “It’s now just 53 days from polling day for the Scottish election on May 6.

"In two weeks’ time we will enter the official campaign period.

"But the reality is that the starting gun has already been fired. The battle is now underway.

"Over the last few weeks, something in Scotland has changed.

"We’ve passed ‘peak Nat’ and, more and more, Scotland is saying ‘enough’.

"An SNP majority government – once seen as a ‘nailed-on’ near-certainty, and for so long the outcome almost universally forecast amongst the pundits - now looks much less sure.

"It’s vital that majority is stopped because it’s the only way to be certain that Scotland isn’t dragged back into another independence referendum when we all need to be focusing on building a recovery from the pandemic.

"At the last election in 2016 the SNP fell just two seats short of an overall majority. That derailed their drive for another independence referendum five years ago.

"And it was achieved because people right across Scotland who wanted to stop the SNP gave their ‘party’ votes to the Scottish Conservatives. We did it together, and we can do it again."

Ms Davidson is not running for re-election as an MSP and is expected to enter the House of Lords when the current session of the Scottish Parliament ends.

The SNP insists it will have a mandate to hold a second referendum if there is a pro-independence majority in Holyrood following May's election.

However, the UK Government has repeatedly rejected this. 

An SNP spokeswoman said: "Ruth Davidson has been using that same punch-line for years, hoping it turns out to be true and then realising it isn’t when the people of Scotland have given their answer in election after election. 

"If it was true, perhaps Baroness Davidson wouldn't be running off to the House of Lords to avoid democratic scrutiny."

Scottish LibDem campaign chair Alistair Carmichael MP said: "People are sick to the teeth of the nationalist double act of the Tories and the SNP.

"Both of them are desperate to keep alive the constant stress and division of the independence debate when most Scots just want to put the recovery first."