RUTH Davidson will today present the Scottish Tories as the only Unionist party left standing in Scotland amid the rubble of the Labour and the LibDems.

The Tory leader will use the collapse of her former Better Together allies at the General Election to position her party as the “only pro-UK alternative to the SNP” for Holyrood in 2016.

“The Scottish Conservatives are the distinctive voice of the two million Scots who want to stay part of the UK,” she will say in a speech to the UK Conservative conference in Manchester. “We are ready and ahead of the pack.”

As they haemorrhaged support to the SNP in May, Scottish Labour lost 40 of the 41 seats they had won in 2010, while the LibDems lost 10 of their 11.

Labour’s vote share also fell 17.7 points to 24.3 per cent, the LibDems fell 11.3 points to 7.5 per cent - but the Tories dropped just 1.8 points to 14.9 per cent and kept their single seat. All three unionist parties were left with only one MP each from Scotland in Westminster, however.

Davidson will say: “We are going into the Scottish Parliament elections with a spring in our step – and that’s partly because of the two campaigns we’ve just come through.

“During those, we looked like we were the only pro-Union party who were actually enjoying themselves and knew what we were talking about.

“After years of commentators writing us off, those two campaigns have put a sense of belief back in the Scottish Conservative soul.”

One of just 15 Tory MSPs elected in 2011, Davidson will say she is “optimistic” about her party’s chances next year because of a new generation of younger candidates.

“From business, the professions, academia, the public and charitable sector, we have people from all backgrounds wanting to bring their experience to Holyrood. We are the distinctive Scottish voice that will stand up for families wanting to get by and get on.”

SNP business convener Derek Mackay said: “Many will find Ruth Davidson’s suggestion that the Scottish Tories have a ‘spring in their step’ after the General Election bizarre given that they received their lowest share of the vote for 150 years in May.

“The Tory Government’s continued austerity, cruel social security cuts and failure to deliver more powers has only resulted in further increasing levels of support for independence.”

Meanwhile, Labour MP Ian Murray, the Shadow Scottish Secretary, urged the Tories to amend the Scotland Bill “to give Scotland the power to create its own social security system.”

This week’s conference will be the first overseen by a Conservative Prime Minister with a working majority in a generation, however delegates have warned to avoid triumphalism and “sneering” at Labour’s new leader, Jeremy Corbyn is due to protest alongside trade unionists outside the gathering on Monday.

The key themes of the conference are expected to be stability, security and opportunity.

However, stability may prove elusive amid growing speculation over David Cameron’s successor and - above all - the re-opening of fundamental divisions over Europe.

Ahead of an in-out referendum by the end of 2017, Cameron is trying to renegotiate the terms of the UK’s membership of the EU.

However, many of his MPs remain implacably opposed to EU membership on any terms.

If Cameron were to lose the In campaign, his position could be untenable.

Eurosceptic Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond yesterday said that if Brussels failed to accept “robust” changes, the public would deliver such a “raspberry” to the Government that the Prime Minister might campaign for an Out vote.

He said: “If we can't get the commitments we need from our European partners on things like Britain being outside the commitment to ever-closer union ... If we can't get these things then, as the Prime Minister has said, we rule nothing out.”

Hammond also suggested the Cabinet would have a say in the final recommendation of whether to recommend staying in or leaving the EU.

Iain Duncan Smith, the eurosceptic Work and Pensions Secretary, said public support for the EU had dropped dramatically in recent months because of the shambolic handling of the twin crises of the Greek debt and refugees.

These had sent “shockwaves everywhere,” he said.

“Nothing is the same after this thing. The European Union has just been hit by an out-of-control bulldozer that has gone straight through the middle of them.”

However he added the problems had helped Cameron’s case for EU reform, with key players such as Germany now “petrified” at the prospect of Brexit and another crisis.

He said Holyrood should have the “unrestricted power” to create new benefits, as well as the ability to top up existing benefits without any kind of veto by Westminster.