We must not concede to Farage’s lies

Following Nigel Farage’s immigrant bashing speech on Tuesday, in which he presented a fantasy of figures pulled out of thin air and cited some highly dubious scaremongering statistics about the alleged involvement of Afghan migrants in sexual crime, on Wednesday the political wing of GB News gained its first MSP in this Scottish Parliament, in the entirely undistinguished figure of Central Scotland list MSP Graham Simpson, a man with all the charisma of one of those cleaning products catalogues that get shoved through your letterbox.

Simpson will become the second Reform UK MSP in Holyrood, failed Scottish Tory leadership contender Michelle Ballantyne resigned from the Tories in 2020 in protest over the party’s support for coronavirus lockdown measures. Michelle believed it’s her god-given right to spread disease. In January 2021 she joined Reform UK and was appointed its Scottish leader. She lost her seat in the 2021 Holyrood election winning a paltry 779 votes. In January 2025 she was first suspended from her Reform UK membership and then resigned from the party after it was reported that she was the administrator of a Facebook page that featured racist and far-right posts. That kind of thing is very on brand for Reform supporters.

The defection of a Tory MSP to Reform is not unexpected. There have been rumours for months that it was on the cards and Simpson was one of those suspected of defecting. Russell Findlay’s tenure as leader of the dwindling band of Scottish Tories has been characterised by Findlay’s incessant ambulance chasing after far right British nationalist politics. He’s already lost one MSP to the Lib Dems, Jamie Greene defected to the Lib Dems in April citing his unhappiness with Findlay’s pursuit of right wing culture war issues. He was followed a week later by Tory MSP Maurice Golden – a frequent critic of Tory leadership on climate issues – who announced that he would not be seeking re-election at the Scottish elections in May next year. Then last week Scottish Tory MSP Jeremy Balfour announced that he also would not be seeking re-election, and would be resigning the Tory whip to sit as an independent, citing the descent of the Scottish Conservatives into “reactionary politics” under Findlay. Balfour became the sixth Scottish Tory MSP to declare that they’re not standing next year.

Now Graham Simpson has decided that he’s better off associating himself with the organ grinder of far-right Anglo-British nationalist populism rather than Findlay’s monkey and has joined Reform UK. Simpson heard Farage’s speech yesterday in which he called for mass deportations and rabble roused with inflammatory misinformation about migrants, channelling the politics of the National Front and the BNP and decided – “That’s the party for me.” Simpson has sponsored a private member’s bill at Holyrood to give voters the right to recall MSPs, but he has no intention of standing down even though he was elected as a Tory on the list. Hypocrisy is very on brand for Farage and his acolytes. He’s the third MSP the Scottish Tories have lost since Findlay took over from Douglas Ross after last year’s Westminster general election. Simpson clearly fancies his chances as a Reform MSP rather than hoping for the best with the rapidly sinking ship of the Scottish Tories.

The reality is that no refugee has ever taken away vital funding for the NHS in order to give as tax cut to the better off, no refugee has ever defunded education in order to boost spending on armaments. No refugee ever lied and deceived about the UK’s relationship with Europe and made false promises that never had any chance of being delivered. No refugee was ever responsible for devastating the British economy’s trading links with its closest partners and then refused to acknowledge the harm and job losses that they caused. It’s not refugees who are responsible for rising prices for food and energy or the widening gap between rich and poor.

Having lied about the problems of the UK being created by bureaucrats in Brussels and falsely promising a golden age for Britain once it cut its ties to the European Union, Farage is attempting to repeat the same con trick, only now the enemies are refugees and human rights laws.

Farage’s speech was predictably platformed by a UK media which is increasingly treating him as a prime minister in waiting. Farage’s speech featured entirely made up figures about how much his mass deportation plan was going to save. Farage insisted that his plan would cost £10 billion over five years, although a very similar plan put forward by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe was costed at £47.5 billion over five years. Farage predictably waved away questions asking him to explain the difference. has previously said Reform would use RAF sites in remote locations to house and deport people, but has repeatedly refused to say where they would be, meaning that likely costs are impossible to assess. We are supposed to take Farage’s word for it that his plan will only cost £10 billion but will “save tens and possibly hundreds of billions of pounds.” Quite how it’s going to save all this money he didn’t say. Nige doesn’t deal in reality, he deals in racist vibes and English victimhood.

Farage proposes to introduce these mass deportations by withdrawing the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). As well as leaving the ECHR, Farage seeks to repeal the Human Rights Act and disapply the 1951 refugee contention and the UN convention against torture as well as the Council of Europe’s anti-trafficking convention.

Make no mistake, when a government repeals Human Rights legislation and withdraws from international treaties on human rights that have been in place for many decades, it’s not going to use its new powers solely against refugees and asylum seekers. It’s the human rights of all of us which are on the line. It’s the employment and civil rights of all of us which will be threatened. Alarmingly, this move also opens the door to the reintroduction of the death penalty and flogging. The ECHR prohibits the death penalty through its Protocols No. 6 and No. 13.

Leaving the ECHR runs a coach and horses through the Good Friday Agreement which underpins peace in Northern Ireland. Not that Farage will have considered that, or cared about it if he had.

Farage ignored questions about whether he was concerned that he could deport people to countries where they might face torture or death. He doesn’t care. His supporters lap up the cruelty and cheer it on. For them the cruelty is the point. But as Trump’s MAGA voters in America have been finding out the hard way, the populist hard right only looks after the interests of the rich and powerful.

It’s not just the British media which has normalised Farage’s vile language and his talk of “invasion”, the Labour party under Starmer is complicit in it too. Starmer has refused to condemn the scaremongering and rabble rousing language used by Farage and will not attempt to make a positive case for immigration. He has already conceded that ground to the far-right.

British politics have become extremely ugly. Blatant lies and the demonisation of minorities are the order of the day. Compassion has been replaced by contempt. If Scotland wants to cling on to a kinder and gentler politics, it can only do so with independence. The UK is headed to a cess pit of hatred and bigotry in which marginalised minorities are demonised and scapegoated for the sins and greed of the rich and powerful.

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