It’s all go in Scotland today. Nigel Farage made a quick stop in Aberdeen to announce his latest Tory defector before hopping in a helicopter to Hamilton to reveal his party’s first Labour defector: Renfrewshire councillor Jamie McGuire. The 24-year-old has represented the Renfrew North and Braehead ward on the Renfrewshire council for just over three years, after being elected in May 2022. His defection today makes him Renfrewshire council’s third Reform councillor after John Gray and Alec Leishman jumped ship from the Tories earlier this year.
McGuire has a long history with the Labour Party, being the ex-chair of the Glasgow University Labour club and the former secretary of Scottish Labour Students and Scottish Young Labour. McGuire previously worked in Holyrood as a parliamentary staffer and as well as being a Scottish Labour councillor, he most recently worked between Scotland and Westminster as a parliamentary researcher for Alison Taylor, the Labour MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North. And he’s even brushed shoulders with some of the Labour leadership in recent years – with McGuire boasting about his ‘surreal experience…sharing a stage’ with Jeremy Corbyn in 2021. ‘Thank you to the Corbyn Project for showing us that another future is possible,’ he tweeted. How times change, eh?
There has been speculation for some time that McGuire was unhappy in his former party – particularly when he was spotted ditching his favourite red tie for lilac and turquoise-coloured items. Mr S has reached out to McGuire for comment, although the new Reform man has not responded yet. Speaking about the move, however, one Scottish Labour figure remarked drily: ‘He’s just after a Holyrood list seat like Thomas Kerr. It’s certainly not from first principles.’ Ouch.
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