REFORM UK’S leader Nigel Farage is set to visit Scotland this spring as the party looks ahead to the Scottish Parliament election next year.
The Herald reported that the Clacton MP will be coming to Scotland, just hours after the First Minister John Swinney called for all parties to “lock out” Reform from Holyrood.
Farage will make the journey north of the Border after the local government elections in England on Thursday, May 1.
The newspaper reported it will be his first time in Scotland since 2019 when he attended a campaign event for the Brexit Party.
A source from Reform Scotland confirmed he will make the trip in May. “We have an event planned for then,” they said.
Adding: “After May's elections we will be gearing up for a strong election in Holyrood in 2026.”
The source declined to say which part of Scotland the Reform leader would be visiting.
Farage has visited Scotland infrequently and did not attend his party's conference in Perth in December last year.
He did not make any campaign appearances in Scotland ahead of the General Election in July either.
The Reform leader famously had to be locked in the Canons' Gait pub on the Royal Mile by police for his own protection and rescued by a riot van during a trip to Edinburgh in 2013.
Farage, the then Ukip-leader, condemned the protesters as “anti-English” and “full of racism”.
Last summer Richard Tice (below), MP and Reform deputy leader, claimed Scotland was too “dangerous” for Farage.
Polls suggest Reform UK is on course to win some seats in the next Scottish Parliament election.
Professor John Curtice, a leading polling expert at Strathclyde University, believes the party is on track to win around 12 to 16 seats next year.
Surveys have also suggested that Scots would overwhelmingly back Scottish independence if Farage was to ever become UK Prime Minister.
Tice previously said Reform UK want to be the “kingmakers” in Holyrood and would vote to see Scottish Labour’s Anas Sarwar as First Minister. He also ruled out a deal with the SNP, saying Reform were a “unionist” party.
Earlier on Wednesday Swinney (below) announced a cross-party conference aimed at uniting Scotland’s political representatives and civic society against the “real threat” of the far right.
The SNP leader warned that “storm clouds are gathering”, as he urged people to present a vision of hope to combat the rise of hard-right populist politics.
The First Minister said he would hold a conference at the end of April with a view to establishing a cross-party consensus on how to combat the far-right.
“You asked me specifically about the locking out of Farage,” he said in response to a question from a journalist at Bute House.
“What I've set out today is the appeal I make to wider Scotland to come together with me.
“I'll provide the hosting environment, the courtesy and respectful debate to bring people together to say we are going to do things in a way that makes sure our country is protected from the bigotry that Farage represents.
“I think that will be a great service to Scotland, if we can bring that about.”
In a statement to journalists, Swinney also said: “It is time to come together to draw a line in the sand. To set out who we are and what we believe in, because a politics of fear is a politics of despair.
“It is a politics that will divide us and destroy so much that we hold dear.
“I want us to be ready for whatever this age of uncertainty throws at us, for us to be united in the face of the undoubted challenges that lie ahead.
“It was a mobilisation of mainstream Scotland that delivered our Parliament a quarter of a century ago.
“I have no doubt it is only by mobilising mainstream Scotland that we can protect those things we care most about, those things that are most important to us today.”
