Lucy Dunn Lucy Dunn

Reform’s Scottish surge continues

(Photo by Peter Summers/Getty Images)

Nigel Farage’s first trip to Scotland in six years hasn’t lacked drama. In Aberdeen this morning, the Reform UK leader announced his newest Tory defector and Granite Council’s first Reform man, Duncan Massey. In a sprightly presser, Farage proceeded to back new oil and gas licences in Scotland, defended his party’s ‘racist’ attack ad on Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and took a pop at a journalist, accusing the Herald newspaper of colluding with protestors outside (which it denies). After the Reform crowd then hopped in a helicopter to Larkhall – neglecting a rather furious bunch of journalists in Hamilton – the party’s Scottish branch announced its newest councillor: Jamie McGuire, a Labour politician of three years in Renfrewshire. Farage certainly doesn’t do things by halves.

There is a widespread nervousness in Scottish Labour that their worst fears may soon be realised

The defection of 24-year-old McGuire is a real coup for Reform UK ahead of the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse poll this Thursday.

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