Nigel Farage's Reform UK party came out top in a UK-wide YouGov poll last week for the first time, edging a point ahead of Labour and four ahead of the Tories.

Now Mr Farage has declared his aim is to overtake Labour in membership and become the UK's biggest political party.

Last year's general elections gave the party its first seats at Westminster, with five MPs elected. And Mr Farage and his colleagues are benefiting from the current disillusionment with Labour and the Tories.

Nigel Farage is set to lead Reform UK’s campaign at next year’s Holyrood elections

placeholder image — Nigel Farage is set to lead Reform UK’s campaign at next year’s Holyrood elections

Reform UK is tipped to do well in the local elections in England in May. And the party has high hopes for next year's Senedd elections in Wales.

But what about Scotland?

Reform has no MSPs at the moment, but a recent poll showed it with 13 per cent support in constituencies and 11 per cent on the list, which was projected to give them nine seats at next year’s Scottish Parliament elections.

And Thomas Kerr, the former leader of the Tory group on Glasgow City Council, defected to Reform last month, signalling the potential for people to switch away from the struggling Conservatives.

There was speculation about Tory MSPs following his example. But Conservative insiders say any defections at Holyood are likely to take place only after the party completes its list rankings for next year's elections and MSPs know whether they have a reasonable chance of being re-elected.

However, the evidence so far is that Reform is not as popular in Scotland as elsewhere. At the general election, the party took 14.3 per cent of the votes across the UK - 15.3 per cent in England and 16.9 per cent in Wales but just 7 per cent in Scotland.

And Nigel Farage is also less popular here. An Ipsos poll in November found his favourable rating was highest in the North of England at 33 per cent and lowest in Scotland at 16 per cent. And when he visited Edinburgh in 2013 he famously had to be locked in a pub by police for his own protection and rescued by a riot van.

The party has no Scottish leader and says Mr Farage will lead Reform’s Holyrood election campaign next year, with a Scottish leader being chosen from among its new MSPs, assuming it gets some.

But Scotland may prove less fertile ground for Reform than other parts of the UK.