NIGEL Farage will front Reform UK’s Scottish Parliament election campaign in 2026, the Sunday National can reveal.
The move sets him up to go head-to-head with First Minister John Swinney and Scottish party leaders Anas Sarwar and Russell Findlay in the TV debates during the campaign.
A party insider said that there was “just no point” in having anyone other than Farage front the campaign because there are no other figures with his profile. Reform has not had a Scottish leader since Michelle Ballantyne (below) quit the position in 2022.
Farage is a divisive figure, especially north of the Border, with his net favourability rating in the UK as a whole standing at minus 20 points, according to an Ipsos poll from November.
But that poll also gave him a favourable rating of 28%, the highest of any major English political figure.
According to leading political scientist Professor John Curtice, Farage is “still not particularly popular” in Scotland.
Glasgow councillor Thomas Kerr, who defected to Reform from the Tories in January, told the Sunday National that Farage appearing in the TV debates for the 2026 Holyrood elections seemed a natural choice.
He said: “Nigel’s obviously a big figure in us, so the viewpoint that we have in Reform is that once the MSPs are elected, they can then decide amongst themselves who the leader is.
“Why detract away from Nigel because he is the frontman of the show? It’s pointless trying to put up someone who is going to be eclipsed by Farage because he’s so well known.”
While Farage may turn off many Scots, Kerr (below) sees him as an asset, especially in media terms.
He said: “I don’t think Nigel will mind me saying to anyone, he loves the limelight and the exciting prospect of Britain’s most exciting and popular politician up against some of the most boring politicians in John Swinney and Russell [Findlay] and others will be very entertaining.
“I think it’s very likely that he’ll be the one that fronts up the TV debates.”
But insiders admit that Reform, who contested their first Scottish Parliament election in 2021 and gained just 5793 under Ballantyne’s stewardship, have yet to craft a full Holyrood policy platform.
Kerr said: “We need to put meat on the bones, people are angry and scunnered. They like the idea of Reform, it’s easy to be the people who are against something, we need to now create a position of saying what we actually stand for and that’s what we’re developing at the moment behind the scenes.”
One party official told the Sunday National that the creation of Reform’s Scottish policy offering was being held up by the intensive vetting operation going on south of the Border for the English local elections this spring.
Reform have been rocked by scandals involving poorly vetted candidates in the past and appear keen to avoid repeats as they continue to climb in the polls.
One party candidate in Scotland faced criticism after saying that “Covid vaccines are for poofs” while another was suspended after calling for humanity to be “obliterated”.
Reform sources are keen to portray the party as being in the ascendency in Scotland, despite previous Farage vehicles like Ukip and the Brexit Party generally failing to take off north of the Border.
An insider said the party now had 8200 members in Scotland and it is understood the party has 30 branches – nearly enough for every local authority area in the country.
There are thought to be around 1200 Reform members in Glasgow alone and Kerr said he believed they had the largest membership of any party in Scotland other than the SNP and Labour.
Many are also former independence supporters, or Yessers who have put aside Reform’s Unionism, insiders said.
Kerr said: “I’m gobsmacked by how many people have come to branch meetings and events who have never been involved in party politics, it’s not people who are defecting, it’s people who have not been involved that liked the cut of the jib from Nigel and said, 'I want to get involved with politics'.
“The amount of people who have been pro-independence supporters who have spoken to me and told me they’re voting Reform because they don’t see a referendum on the horizon, so they’re happy to look at policy rather than the infrastructure to get a referendum.”
