Nigel Farage vows to join campaign trail at Holyrood elections as Reform aim to secure seats

Nigel Farage will join the campaign trail at the next Holyrood election as his party aims to make a breakthrough at the Scottish Parliament in 2026.

The Reform leader told STV News he would campaign personally in Scotland, with polling suggesting his party will secure a handful of seats in what would be a significant shift in Scottish politics.

Reform has little party infrastructure in Scotland, but secured 7% of the vote at the general election in July despite doing little campaigning.

Farage, the party’s founder and figurehead, did not venture north of the border, with his deputy Richard Tice suggesting it was too “dangerous” for him to do so.

In 2013, on a visit to Edinburgh as leader of UKIP, Farage was pursued by protesters near the Scottish Parliament and had to take shelter in a pub. Police were called and had to escort the veteran politician away.

With the latest polls suggesting Reform could secure a handful of MSPs, Farage has said he will visit Scotland to campaign next year, ahead of Holyrood elections in 2026.

In an interview with STV News, Farage said: “What was remarkable is that we fielded a full slate of candidates in Scotland. I was stunned. How did that happen, when we didn’t have much structure at all?

“We are now holding meetings in Scotland. The numbers coming are quite impressive.”

He added: “My biggest job is to build a national political party.”

Farage said his party would put support for the North Sea oil and gas industry at the core of its message to Scottish voters.

“The economic implications of the collapse of the North Sea industry, not just for Aberdeen, but for large parts of Scotland, are huge,” he said.

“And I think we’re the only pragmatists, we’re saying, look – we will be using oil and gas in 2050. We just will. There’s no way around that.

“It doesn’t matter how many wind farms you build, we’re going to need this stuff.

“So why not produce our own, rather than import it from other parts of the world – and often run by unpleasant dictatorial regimes.

“That, I think, is the basis on which we’re beginning to build support in Scotland. I also think that no one knows what the Scottish Conservatives are, what they stand for.”

Reform is holding a Scottish conference on November 2, which will be attended by Tice, the party’s deputy leader.

But Farage said: “I can assure you, Scotland will be seeing me, of that there is no question at all. I think that really, from very little acorns, we’ve made a very good start… I will be in Scotland next year, thinking about planning a year ahead for the Scottish elections.”

Pollster Mark Diffley told STV News that Reform had been the “surprise package” of the general election and were on course for a historic breakthrough.

No party to the right of the Scottish Conservatives has ever won a seat in the Scottish Parliament at an election. Reform’s anti-immigration stance has rarely, if ever, been reflected in debate at Holyrood.

“The two or three polls that have been done since the election actually puts support for Reform higher than it was in the general election, up at around 8% or 9%. And that is more than enough to get a handful of seats at the next Holyrood election,” Mr Diffley said.

“The importance of that is that it gives the parliament a very different flavour. We haven’t had representation from the hard right of politics here previously, and of course it will come largely at the expense of the Conservatives.”

Reform’s only previous representation in the Scottish Parliament was for a few months in 2021, when the former Conservative MSP Michelle Ballantyne joined the party and became its Scottish leader, before losing her seat in elections that year.