Aberdeen councillor Duncan Massey defects to Reform
A Tory councillor in Aberdeen has defected to Reform UK.
Conservative Duncan Massey is the first local councillor in the Granite City to join Nigel Farage's party.
Speaking outside Aberdeen seafood restaurant The Silver Darling, the oil and gas economist said Reform UK was the only party with solutions for Scotland, and Aberdeen's energy sector.
"The whole country is struggling at the moment", he said.
"It feels like things aren't working. Here in Scotland, we've had a failing SNP government for twenty years.
"Here in Aberdeen, it feels like we have policies which are deliberately trying to restore the oil and gas industry."
Asked if he'd consider running for Holyrood in 2026, Massey said he would not rule it out.
More to come.
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We shall not continue as a free country if we continue to submit to radical Islamists
It shows in what strange times we live that it is the chairman of Reform, of all parties, who resigns over the question of banning the burka. Surely his party is the likeliest to favour a ban or – at least – to be able to contain internal disagreements on the subject. Probably Reform's chairman, Zia Yusuf, had other reasons to go. He is not the first person to find it challenging to work closely with Nigel Farage. In a spooky way, Reform tends to act as a mini-Maga, mirroring Trumpery in its highs and lows. Over there, Donald Trump and Elon Musk explode with a cosmic bang; over here, Farage and Yusuf then go off with a smaller pop. For this reason, I suspect that when Maga falters, as it eventually will, so will Reform. Nevertheless, Mr Yusuf is a Muslim. Partly for that reason, he was a recruitment coup for the supposedly 'Islamophobic' Reform. 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