Farage: Reform Will Oust SNP From Power Next Year

Nigel Farage has declared that he wants Reform UK to become “strong enough” in Scotland to “remove the SNP from power,” as he unveiled the first Conservative MSP to defect to his party.

At a press conference in Uphall, West Lothian, on Wednesday, Mr Farage welcomed Central Scotland MSP Graham Simpson, making him the first Tory to switch sides at Holyrood and Reform’s only representative there. Simpson is the third MSP to abandon the Conservatives in recent months, following Jamie Greene, now a Liberal Democrat, and Jeremy Balfour, who sits as an independent.

Farage claimed Conservative support in Scotland had collapsed to “derisory levels” and predicted the party would soon “cease to be a political force.”

Simpson, who described leaving the Conservatives as an “enormous wrench,” said the political establishment was failing ordinary Scots. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch countered by insisting her party remained “the only voice on the right,” arguing that those defecting were “never true Conservatives.”

Farage denied Reform was simply a new version of the Conservatives, saying his priority was to challenge the SNP at next year’s Holyrood election. He hinted at the possibility of cooperating with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar to block the nationalists, despite previously ruling out such deals. “After an election, mathematics can be surprising,” Farage remarked, though Simpson advised that Reform should avoid talk of alliances for now.

Reform has already attracted more than a dozen former Conservative councillors across Scotland, and Farage pointed to recent by-elections where his party pushed the Tories into weak positions. He predicted the Scottish Conservatives would perform so poorly next May that they would “cease to matter politically,” with similar trends emerging in Wales and northern England.

Responding during a visit to Teesside, Badenoch said: “We are the only genuine voice on the right. Reform backs nationalisation and more welfare spending, which are not centre-right policies. Those leaving us were never Conservatives in the first place.”

The Scottish Conservatives accused Reform of being a gift to the SNP rather than a threat, saying Farage’s own remarks showed he was content to see the nationalists remain in power. They warned that splitting the vote would only help First Minister John Swinney.

SNP minister Mairi McAllan dismissed Farage as “the ultimate symbol of Westminster failure,” accusing him of pushing “failed Thatcherite economics” alongside “extreme anti-immigrant rhetoric” that has long poisoned UK politics.