Richard Tice has denied that Nigel Farage is scared of Scotland after Reform UK’s leader snubbed the party’s biggest Scottish conference.
Around 350 delegates attended the event in Perth, which organisers claimed was double the total from all four previous conferences combined.
The gathering comes after a slew of strong showings in council by-elections and with polls suggesting Reform could pick up at least 14 MSPs in 2026, overtaking the Greens and the Lib Dems.
However, despite the positive prospects, the MP for Clacton stayed away.
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Mr Farage has not been north of the border for some time. During the election campaign, Mr Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, was the only senior figure to campaign in Scotland.
At the time, he told journalists Mr Farage would not come north of the border as it was “dangerous” for him.
In 2013, while Ukip leader, he faced protests in both Aberdeen and Edinburgh and was forced to leave a pub in the Scottish capital under police escort.
The last time Mr Farage was in Scotland was in April 2023 when he broadcast an episode of his GB News show from Aberdeen.
“There's a lot going on, and Nigel will be here in due course,” Mr Tice told journalists. “We've got a long time, 18 months until the Holyrood thing.
“We'll be growing, ramping it up, and we're going to make great progress.”
He said his party leader “can't be everywhere.”
“I can't be everywhere,” he added. “So I didn't get to the Welsh conference. He can't be everywhere.
“We're growing the party at pace. And so I was here at the election. I'm here [for the conference].
“I think Nigel is coming in January or February, but, at the end of the day, it's quite a big country, and we're trying to grow quite quickly.”
Reform winning 14 seats would mean none of the other parties or likely cross-party coalitions would be able to form a government.
Mr Tice said that could make his party “kingmakers.”
Despite significant policy differences with Labour over net zero, which he described as the “greatest act of financial negligence ever imposed on a nation,” he ruled out any prospect of a deal with the SNP.
“We're a unionist party, obviously. So at the end of the day, the Scottish people will speak, but the SNP, they want independence, and we don't.”
“But the key thing is all the other political parties recognise that Reform will secure a meaningful number of seats and that we will be players at the table, and that is a very different position from three months ago,” he added.
Asked if he would prop up Anas Sarwar, Mr Tice said he wanted a "Reform leader to run the country."
"We're not going to hypothesize on the specifics of a manifesto, negotiations that's all for down the track."
Net zero looks set to be a key platform for Reform in the run-up to the May 2026 election, with Mr Tice copying Donald Trump’s promise to, “drill, baby still.”
“Climate change is real, has been for millions of years, and will be for millions of years, and all this BS and arrogance to think that we can stop the power of the sun and the power of volcanos is claptrap garbage, and we're not having it.”
He also called for a rethink on Scotland's fracking ban.
During the conference, delegates heard speeches on sex education in schools and pylons, farming and drug policy.
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The biggest cheer of the day went to Party Chairman Zia Yusuf, who railed against Humza Yousaf for a speech on racism.
In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, Mr Yousaf, who was justice secretary at the time, told MSPs that the country had to "accept the reality and the evidence that is in front of us, that Scotland has a problem of structural racism".
He went on to say "In 99% of their meetings I go to, I am the only non-white person in the room".
Mr Yousaf then listed several positions - including the lord advocate, solicitor general and Police Scotland chief constable - and said, after each, that they were "white"
Clips of the speech are regularly shared on social media, including once by Elon Musk, who branded the former first minister a “blatant racist.“
In his speech to the conference, Mr Yusuf said Mr Yousaf’s speech was “despicable”.
“There he stood pontificating in the Scottish Parliament. His voice and body language dripping with hate and disdain.
“Well, let's clear something up for Humza Yousaf and the SNP right here at the annual conference of the fastest-growing party in Scotland, there is nothing wrong whatsoever with being white.”
The conference was picketed by around 70 anti-racist campaigners and trade unionists. They attempted to drown out the speakers in the Royal George Hotel with loud music.
Catriona MacKay, the co-founder of Perth Against Racism, told our sister paper, The National that Reform “enables racism in their views. They’re a populist party. Whatever people believe, they will back".
She added: “We object to their policies. We need immigration, we need migrants, and we should not be scared of people running away from war and fleeing persecution. They are not the enemy.”
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