- 8 months ago
Graham Simpson MSP joins Reform UK
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage in Scotland to unveil Graham Simpson MSP defection fron Conservative to Reform
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage in Scotland to unveil Graham Simpson MSP defection fron Conservative to Reform
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00:00Hello, I'm Alistair Grant, the political editor of The Scotsman, and I'm here at a hotel in Broxburn,
00:04just outside Edinburgh, where Nigel Farage has been holding a Reform UK press conference.
00:08Now, there has long been speculation over a potential defection of a Scottish Conservative MSP
00:14to Nigel Farage's Reform UK.
00:16We've had two MSPs in recent months leaving the Tories.
00:19Jamie Green defected to the Liberal Democrats.
00:22Jeremy Balfour, in recent days, defected to become an Independent.
00:25Both of them raising concerns about what they saw as a populist shift in the Scottish Conservative Party
00:31to ape Reform UK.
00:33But today, we got our first defection of this Parliament from a Scottish Conservative MSP to Reform UK,
00:41and that's Central Scotland MSP, Graeme Simpson.
00:43He's been in MSP since 2016.
00:45He was appearing at the press conference there with Nigel Farage,
00:48very much saying that he saw Reform UK as a fresh start,
00:51and too many people in this country felt like they'd been let down,
00:54and he saw Reform UK as a chance to do something about that.
00:59He was asked about all sorts of issues.
01:01All sorts of issues came up in that press conference with Nigel Farage,
01:04went on for longer than an hour.
01:06He spoke a lot about his immigration plans,
01:08his plans to tackle migration that he held a press conference on on Tuesday.
01:13He spoke a lot about issues to do with net zero.
01:15He was also asked about several issues on domestic policy.
01:20Yesterday, I asked him what Reform UK's policies will be in Scotland,
01:23because we actually don't know that much about at all other than on those broad issues
01:27like net zero, like immigration, what the policy platform Reform UK will actually stand
01:32on in Scotland.
01:33How will they address spiralling NHS waiting lists?
01:35How will they go about improving the Scottish education system, which many people view as
01:39being on the decline, and Nigel Farage effectively saying that that's why he's looking to people
01:44like Graeme Simpson, people who he says have experience and can help formulate that policy
01:49platform.
01:49But I'm sure we'll hear a lot more from Graeme Simpson in the coming days, in the coming
01:53weeks, as we head into that Holyrood election.
01:56Good morning, everybody.
02:01It's my first visit to Scotland since I was recently in Aberdeen, meeting many senior representatives
02:09of the oil and gas industry.
02:11And of course, since that time, there's been yet more crushing and unnecessary news for
02:17the Scottish and indeed British economy.
02:19And later on that day, we were pretty much eve of pole for the Scottish Parliament by-election
02:25in Hamilton, in which, I think it's fair to say, the result we got pretty much stunned
02:30everybody, including, to some extent, myself.
02:34Ross was a great candidate, but we did, I think, in a very short space of time, with relatively
02:40limited resources, achieve a remarkable result.
02:44And we are, as a party, getting ready for the Scottish Parliament elections next year.
02:51We've just had a very big weekend with 200 potential candidates who've come forward, who are going
02:57through interviews, who are going through vetting, and we will be taking those elections
03:02next year very seriously indeed.
03:05And I think our opponents might take us quite seriously as well.
03:09Now, you might have noticed that yesterday I did a little press conference at Oxford Airport,
03:13which seems to have attracted quite a bit of attention, and is now, it seems to be bringing
03:19quite a degree of division within the Labour government itself.
03:23You know, firstly, Jack Straw, who was the Home Secretary at a time when we did face a problem
03:28with illegal immigration.
03:29In those days, it was people basically coming in the backs of lorries.
03:34Jack Straw saying we should effectively disapply, ECHR.
03:38And interestingly this morning, of all people, Jack Straw, who was one of the architects of
03:44the Human Rights Act in 1998, now saying it was never intended to be used in the way
03:51that it currently is by the British judges.
03:54So I do think, I do think what we did yesterday was to spark a much bigger national debate about
04:00how we end illegal immigration, how we control our borders.
04:04I know this has not been a particularly massive topic in Scottish politics.
04:09I'm not here to dwell on that issue today, but I have a sense that maybe it will become
04:15a bigger debate in Scottish politics, given that Glasgow now is the asylum capital of the
04:21United Kingdom, with nearly 4,000 people who came to Britain illegally housed in Glasgow.
04:29That's 50% more than the next highest place in the United Kingdom, which is Birmingham.
04:3550% more.
04:37And I would have thought that if you were a family on the social housing waiting list in
04:42Glasgow, you might be beginning to think this is something that perhaps ought to be discussed.
04:47And, accordingly, we have seen a rise in certain types of crime in Glasgow over the last couple
04:55of years, coinciding with the placement of thousands of young, undocumented males from
05:01cultures in which women aren't even second-class citizens.
05:04So, I think that will be more of a debate in Scotland as time goes on.
05:11But the intention of today's press conference is, and it's part of showing you, how seriously
05:18we are taking the Scottish Parliament elections.
05:21It's for me to introduce Graham Simpson, MSP.
05:25He's been in the Parliament since 2017 for Central Scotland.
05:31He, of course, has been a Conservative.
05:34But I understand, Graham, that may be about to change.
05:39So, please, it's all yours.
05:43Well, thanks very much, Nigel.
05:46Last night, I was asked to send Nigel's team my CV, or a bit of a biog.
05:53What I left out of that was that I'm a member of the cross-party group on beer and pubs.
06:01And I thought you'd like that.
06:03And we often do visit breweries and pubs, mainly in the Edinburgh area.
06:09So, I know you perhaps didn't have a good experience in an Edinburgh pub a few years ago.
06:15But maybe we can change that at some point, Nigel.
06:20Now, it's fair to say that some of you won't be surprised to see me here,
06:29given that the Scottish Tories have been touting my name as a potential defector for months now.
06:37So, today, I'm giving them what they want, but perhaps not for the reasons that they think.
06:43Leaving the party that I first joined when I was 15 is an enormous wrench.
06:51And I've been through a lot of soul-searching in the past few weeks.
06:56I've written to Russell Finlay, resigning from the Scottish Conservatives, but frankly, the letter is not worth sharing,
07:04because besides saying that I'm off, the only other thing, it says, is to wish him all the best for the future.
07:12And I mean that on a personal level.
07:15When Murdoch Fraser first stood for the leadership of the Scottish Conservatives in 2011,
07:22he did so suggesting that we needed a new centre-right party in Scotland.
07:28And I agreed at that time with that analysis.
07:31But the independence referendum came along, and all such talk went away.
07:37The referendum was a gift to the Tories, and with the threat of such upheaval gone,
07:44I think their electoral hopes are diminishing fast.
07:49To be honest, and I think you all know this,
07:52the constitutional battle has got in the way of good government and good opposition here.
08:00We have neither.
08:01But with a new kid on the block, reform,
08:03the kind of centre-right party envisaged all those years ago,
08:08we can at least have one of those.
08:11Now, I've been thinking about my future for some time.
08:15I decided a few months ago that I would not be standing for the Scottish Conservatives again.
08:21And others have taken the same decision.
08:25I told the party that at the end of May,
08:28but with the Hamilton by-election looming,
08:31where Ross did very, very well,
08:34I promised not to say anything.
08:36I've not stuck out a press release or said anything on social media.
08:42I honestly thought the most likely scenario for me
08:45would be to move on to the next stage of my life
08:49and find a job in one of the sectors that really interests me,
08:53such as housing or transport.
08:55And although finding a job may not have been easy,
08:59I think I have enough respect out there
09:02to have got something that would have excited me.
09:05But I've watched reform with interest
09:07and I see the opportunity to help to create something fresh here in Scotland.
09:13And it's clear that the voters agree in increasing numbers.
09:18But just because a party is becoming popular
09:20isn't a reason to join it.
09:21Keeping your job in Parliament isn't a good enough reason either.
09:27I've only reached the decision that I have in the past few weeks,
09:32and I mean over the summer.
09:34And it's not been easy.
09:36It really has not been easy.
09:37I first joined the Conservatives when I was at school,
09:41just before Mrs Thatcher came to power.
09:44I left politics for a career in journalism,
09:48but then rejoined and have been a councillor and an MSP.
09:52So I'm really very fortunate.
09:54I know what a Conservative is,
09:56and I actually wrote about it last year,
09:58just to remind some people.
09:59The election next year here in Scotland
10:03is going to see a very different Parliament
10:07from the one we have now,
10:09which is stale and very often uninspiring.
10:12Too many people feel let down and ignored.
10:16They feel the system is against them,
10:19that the traditional parties don't even care about them.
10:23Save for some fine individual MSPs across parties,
10:27the political class is not serving the people well.
10:32Failure is accepted, and change takes far too long.
10:36And I'll give you a couple of examples personally of that.
10:39Thousands of people living in tenements
10:41often face real difficulties
10:43when it comes to maintaining their buildings.
10:46In the last session of Parliament,
10:49March 2018 to be exact,
10:51a group of MSPs from across the divide
10:53formed a working group
10:55to see how we could address the challenges.
10:58And we came up with some proposals.
11:00But it will be the next Parliament
11:02until we see any legislative change.
11:05So probably at least ten years
11:07since we first started looking at this.
11:11The second example of how slow things can be
11:13has been the progress of my Members' Bill,
11:16which would see a system of recall
11:19introduced into the Scottish Parliament.
11:22I first mooted this
11:23at the end of the last session of Parliament
11:25and started work on it
11:27at the beginning of this session.
11:30It's badly needed to restore some trust,
11:34but we've not even had the stage one debate.
11:38It might get over the line
11:40before Parliament dissolves
11:41at the end of March.
11:43And I hope, I really hope,
11:45that my move today
11:47does not jeopardise that,
11:49as it's far too important
11:50for people to play silly games with.
11:54This isn't the kind of bitter speech
11:56that you might have been expecting, is it?
11:59I haven't criticised the Scottish Conservatives
12:01or Russell Finlay.
12:04For me, politics is about
12:06what you can do for people
12:07and not yourself.
12:09And I've demonstrated that
12:10in my ten years as a councillor
12:12in the Conservative bastion of East Kilbride,
12:15and since being elected
12:16to the Scottish Parliament in 2016.
12:20One very recent example
12:22was my successful campaign
12:24to have the companions of people
12:26with site difficulties
12:27allowed free rail travel.
12:30That didn't get a lot of publicity,
12:32but that's a really positive thing,
12:34and it helps a lot of people.
12:36I've joined Reform
12:37because we have the chance
12:39to create something new,
12:40exciting and lasting
12:42that puts the needs of people
12:44over the system,
12:45that asks what is going wrong
12:47and how we can fix it.
12:50The SNP was first selected to power
12:52in 2007,
12:54so next year will mark
12:5519 years of failure
12:57in health, education and transport.
13:01Somehow we need to remove them
13:02from office,
13:03and Reform can help to do that.
13:06Scotland needs fresh thinking,
13:08new ideas,
13:08and I hope to be at the heart
13:10of helping Reform shape that offer
13:12to the people next year
13:14with policies drawn up in Scotland,
13:18for Scotland,
13:19and designed to fix the mess
13:20that we're in.
13:21And that's why I'm joining now,
13:23and not later.
13:25I've no doubt that initially
13:27my announcement today
13:29will spark anger,
13:31disappointment,
13:32and probably some sheer nastiness.
13:35I don't like that aspect of politics,
13:37and I'm not looking forward to it,
13:39but there are many ex-colleagues
13:41who will also understand.
13:43And I say to those
13:44who have great ideas for Scotland
13:47and who may have felt ignored,
13:49to talk to me.
13:51You will find my door,
13:52wherever I am put in Parliament next week,
13:56open and receptive
13:57to the kind of fresh thinking
13:59that we need in politics.
14:01And over the next few days and weeks,
14:04I'll have more to say
14:05on what we need to do
14:06to fix the mess
14:07that the SNP has made,
14:09and how reform can help to do that.
14:13Very good.
14:15Well, welcome.
14:16Welcome.
14:17Welcome.
14:17Welcome.
14:17Welcome.
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