Scottish Labour councillor defecting to Reform, says Nigel Farage

Nigel Farage has announced that a Scottish Labour councillor is due to defect to Reform UK in Hamilton on Monday afternoon.

The news came just moments after Farage welcomed Scottish Tory councillor Duncan Massey to his party in Aberdeen.

“There have been several Conservative councillors that have come to us, and there’ll be a Labour councillor coming to us this afternoon when we get to Hamilton,” Farage said on Monday morning.

“Duncan Massey has been not just a city councillor here in Aberdeen over the course of the last few years, but is somebody who has spent 20 years working in the oil and gas industry, and it’s my happy duty to welcome Duncan as a Reform councillor here in the city of Aberdeen today.”

The Reform UK party leader was in Aberdeen on Monday morning for a press conference.

It’s part of his Scottish tour ahead of the Hamilton, Larkhall, and Stonehouse by-election near Glasgow on Thursday.

At the conference, Farage slammed Labour and SNP Governments at Westminster and Holyrood for their net-zero targets and proposals.

The Reform UK leader claimed that “2025 will be a year of record consumption of fossil fuels”, and he said people are seeing Scotland – and parts of England and Wales – “de-industrialised before our very eyes”.

“We can con ourselves as much as we like, there’ll be more coal burnt this year than has ever been burnt in the history of mankind,” Farage said.

“And the same applies to the use of gas and oil, even the most ardent opponent of net zero has to accept the world will still be using oil and gas.”

It’s one of the reasons Massey said he defected to Reform UK.

“I’ve joined Reform because, like for most people, I have real concerns about the whole country,” Massey said.

He said the current Government “doesn’t feel like it’s working”, and he cited the “stagnant” economy, “stagnant” wages, “public services that don’t feel like they’re working”, and the “deindustrialisation of the UK because of net-zero” as reasons for joining Farage’s party.

“We’ve got huge problems and we need massive and urgent change. I believe it’s Reform that can bring that change,” Massey said at the press conference.

Massey was elected as a Tory Aberdeen City Councillor for Lower Deeside in 2022 after working in the oil and gas industry for two decades.

He previously said he was “very passionate” about the energy transition, and said on his blog that he completed an MSc in the energy transition at Aberdeen University.

He previously said: “I believe the North East has a real opportunity to keep progressing in this area.”