Reform UK Scotland

Good spot if that is the right answer.

That was MSP Amanda Bland, who has quit Reform UK Scotland to sit as an independent.

Her resignation pushes the party to the third largest group at Holyrood, with one member fewer than Labour.

You can't just switch sides whenever you feel like it, said Reform Scotland leader and former Conservative minister Malcolm Offord.

Black Betty, Amanda Bland.

It's going to be stuck in there.

She has walked away from Reform UK Scotland.

But what about you, Ifrah? What have you chosen to walk away from?

This is a very different type of person in terms of what their objectives are, what their priorities are and what their agenda is.

But it has certainly felt to me like Reform UK Scotland is very much more Reform UK than it is Reform Scotland.

And I think you'll see a lot of people in that group who will consider their leader to be Nigel Farage, not Malcolm Offord.

Now, this has been mirrored for years in the Scottish Conservative Party, of course.

And there's a uniqueness there in that Nigel Farage is not seen, I don't think, by Scots as being a unionist, a British unionist.

I think he's seen as being English.

And I think that really places a massive concrete ceiling above what Reform UK Scotland can achieve in the Scottish Parliament.

I just don't think it's going anywhere under the current structure.

And yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll treat it in the, in the right way.

How about dealing with other parties in, in Holyrood now? Because, um, John Swinney, the SNP leader, um, was pretty clear he doesn't wanna deal with Reform, um, in any way whatsoever.

Are you adopting a similar strategy, or do you...

Is your door open to every party when it comes to trying to forge alliances and, and get what you think is a good deal?

So I'm not gonna do any deals in terms of, you know, political arrangements with, with Reform.

I think that they are Um, a really dark force in, uh, our politics more broadly, the populist right that's, um, that's rising.

Some of the, um, the positions that they are taking, uh, on a day-to-day basis and actually the, the background of parties, you know, in, in the hawk these, uh, crypto billionaires and the rampant corruption that's running right through it.

Um, so huge issues, uh, with, uh, with Reform and, you know, Labour, as we always have done, will lead the fight against, uh, the, the right wing, uh, rather than, uh, be, be dealing with them.