Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Tory party | Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images Scottish Tory leader: UK Conservatives ‘dour’ and ‘joyless’ Ruth Davidson says tone of immigration debate has been ‘far too judgmental.’

LONDON — Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson criticized the U.K. government's approach to immigration, calling for a review of longstanding net migration targets, and said Tories needed to be more fun to win votes.

Speaking at the launch event for new Tory think tank Onward, Davidson said: “Sometimes as Tories we just look a bit dour. We look a bit joyless ... We don’t get to win if we start hectoring the people that we need to vote for us.”

She added: “We’ve got to learn to be a bit more joyful — and that’s something that I think we have tried to learn in Scotland. When you do it with a smile, they actually get behind you.”

Davidson, who has been tipped as a future Tory leader, also said the Tories must do more to “forge an open-feeling, forward-looking conservatism that speaks equally to all."

Speaking earlier to the BBC, Davidson said the tone of the immigration debate has been "far too judgmental" and that the U.K. needs to start having a "mature debate" about immigration as it acquires new powers to control EU migration through Brexit.

She said that the government's target of achieving annual net migration below 100,000 "needs to be reviewed" and said that she would like to see students taken out of migration statistics — an approach Prime Minister Theresa May, a former home secretary, has repeatedly rejected.

Davidson said that the Windrush scandal, has left her "angry," criticizing "the basic unfairness" of the errors made by the government.