‘Very real possibility’ Nigel Farage could be UK’s next PM, says John Swinney

John Swinney has said there is a “very real possibility” that Nigel Farage could by the UK’s next prime minister – adding he is “fearful of what lies ahead” if that comes to pass.

His comments came in the wake of Reform UK making major gains in the local elections in England, picking up 10 councils and more than 600 seats in Thursday’s poll.

Meanwhile, new Reform MP Sarah Pochin, who won the Runcorn and Helsby seat in the Commons from Labour in a by-election, thanked voters for backing her and putting their “faith in Nigel Farage as the next prime minister of this great country”.

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Nigel Farage is just getting started – Scotland is next

Paris Gourtsoyannis

Farage himself declared that the English local election results marked the “beginning of the end of the Conservative Party”.

Asked if Farage could be the next prime minister of the UK, Swinney said: “Yes, I think it is very real possibility that that could happen.

“It makes me very fearful of what lies ahead.”

He described the election results as being a “demonstration of the absolutely spectacular failure of the Labour and Conservative parties in their handling of Farage”.

Hitting out at the Tories and Labour, the Scottish First Minister claimed both parties had “spent years cosying up to the Farage agenda and they have now come a cropper”.

Speaking about the “folly of their actions” he added: “I think Labour and the Tories have spent years cosying up to Farage.

“I have made clear the only way to deal with Farage is to confront him, which is what we will do in Scotland and to take a different approach.”

The SNP leader made clear he wants to “make sure that the decent values of Scotland, which I cherish and treasure enormously, are the values which prevail against the alien values that Nigel Farage is peddling”.

However, he accused Scottish Conservatives of “trying to cosy up to Farage”, with the First Minister saying: “I listened to some of the things the Conservative Party is now saying in Scotland, and I am deeply disturbed by what they are saying.

“Because they are trying to cosy up to Farage, they are trying to avoid haemorrhaging to Farage in the way the Conservatives have just haemorrhaged to Farage south of the border.”

Polls have suggested Reform UK could win a dozen or more MSPs at Holyrood in next May’s Scottish Parliament elections, despite currently having no representatives there.

The First Minister went on to say he was “worried the general consensus about inclusive, cohesive decent values in Scotland are now going to be challenged by some Members of Parliament”.

Swinney claimed he was now “beginning to hear” this from Scottish Tories as “they desperately try to withstand the pressure from Farage”.

However, he said he was now “even more resolute, absolutely more resolute, to assert and promote the decent values of Scotland that have served our country really well – values of tolerance, inclusion, of civility, bringing people together, being a welcoming country”.

Swinney insisted: “Those are the values I want to champion.”

Reform UK councillor Thomas Kerr said: “To hear the First Minister describe the values of ordinary Reform voters as ‘alien’ is deeply disappointing.

“It’s also revealing. When political elites like Mr Swinney lose control of the narrative, they often resort to fear, smear, and the old reliable trick of calling everyone they disagree with a danger to democracy.”

Kerr, a councillor in Glasgow who defected from the Conservatives to Reform, insisted: “What’s really happening here is not the rise of some great threat, but the reawakening of political engagement.

“Millions of people feel ignored by the cosy club of Labour, Tory, and SNP insiders. They’re turning to Reform not because they’ve been duped by Farage, but because they’re tired of being patronised, overruled, and dismissed.”

He added: “Scotland is changing. The political class may not like it, but they’d do well to understand it. This isn’t the end of democracy. It’s the beginning of it finding its voice again.”

A Scottish Conservative spokesperson said: “John Swinney is talking up Reform because he knows it’s a gift to his party. As we saw in last year’s general election, they handed several seats to the SNP which would have otherwise gone to a pro-UK party.

“Recent polling has confirmed that voting Reform will only help the SNP win a pro-independence majority at next year’s election, when the focus must be on getting the SNP out.”