Current polling figures indicate that the UK is heading for an “extreme left” coalition government that would give the green light for a second Scottish independence referendum, according to Conservative MP Esther McVey.

She told GB News: “The public are looking for clear, straightforward leadership, which Kemi is providing, and they want to know that the government, or the new leader, or the new party that’s going to run the country – I’m hoping it’s us – is on the public’s side.

“But you are right. This poll doesn’t make good reading, if you see that it’s a left-wing coalition that is likely to win. And I looked at the figures, and I’m guessing it’s going to be Labour, the Lib Dems, because they’re certainly courting one another at the moment.

“Ed Davey is always blowing smoke in the Labour Party’s direction, but it also looks as if it’ll be an SNP alliance there. And that, if you think Labour’s bad now and it’s a hard left party now, with the Lib Dems and SNP, it will be extreme left.

“We have to say, what will those two parties get out of Labour for joining them and allowing Labour to lead and [appoint] the Prime Minister. Lib Dems will want proportional representation, which, to be fair, Andy Burnham will want too because he sees that as the only route to have a left-wing party and alliance in forever, and the SNP will want that next referendum vote to again be independent Scotland, which will be the crumbling of the UK.

“Andy Burnham seems to me will collapse to both, because he’s already said both of those things in PMQs and actually had to be corrected on giving the SNP another vote because he’d misspoken.”

On the prospect of right-wing parties uniting, she said: “Well, unfortunately, at the moment, all of those various leaders are not prepared to do that, and actually, some of the voters don’t want it either. Some people who are voting Reform would otherwise maybe have been Labour are saying they wouldn’t want to vote Conservative.

“They don’t want Reform to be Conservative 2.0. But I have great faith in the electorate, and they will say actually, if a Conservative is going to win here, and we want a right-wing party, we want a government that’s centre-right, right-wing, then they will vote for the right one.

“They shouldn’t be splitting the vote, and the electorate is very good at doing that. But that is the only way to see off an extreme left-wing party that will destroy this country in rapid time.”