The Reform candidate who says Brexit reduced the UK to a “state of disarray”

Leaving the EU had left the NHS “on its knees” and reduced the UK to a “state of disarray”, MacDougall has argued in a bleak assessment of the Brexit project.

“Since David Cameron held his referendum in 2016 the UK has been left in a state of disarray,” she has written. “The campaign was a sales pitch in which the goods have never been delivered but the onslaught continues to this day with a very divided nation.

“The campaign itself had many promises, but it was the promise of solving immigration issues, and the red bus with the £350m investment pledge to reform our NHS which in my own opinion led voters to believe things would change for the better. How wrong could they be?

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“It only led to a huge divorce bill and we are still paying the price for this. Our immigration situation is worse than ever because of the Tory government’s incompetence and our NHS is absolutely on its knees. These are only two areas I am mentioning of the failures but we all know there are so many more.”

Indeed we do and amen to that, you may be tempted to say, but do read on before casting your ballot – for MacDougall is a candidate for, er, Reform UK.

MacDougall is a former Labour councillor who quit the party for Nigel Farage’s mob in 2024, and the words above were written in 2022 when she was seeking the endorsement of the Labour Movement for Europe as she sought to retain her seat on Fife Council. Fife, like Scotland more widely, voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU – 59% to 41% – and MacDougall was facing a strong SNP challenge.

Now, though, less than a year after quitting Labour and throwing her lot in with Farage, she told Fife Today this week: “There is a general feeling of apathy. People have lost faith and trust in politics.”

Quite. Perhaps it’s because of people who once were prepared to speak the truth about Brexit at a time when their own party was unprepared to even say the word, and now have signed up to one which would not only tear up our existing trade arrangements with Europe but also withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights?

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Still, as number two on Reform’s list for the Mid Scotland and Fife region, she’s all but guaranteed a seat in the Scottish Parliament for the next five years. Those are her principles, and if you don’t like them, she’s got others…

MacDougall, though, is not the candidate on Super Thursday (I’m sticking with this) with the most confused historical views on Brexit. That prize surely goes to Laurence Williams, running as the Green Party’s candidate for Sidcup in the borough of Bexley, south-east London – the 10th party he’s stood for in 16 different elections.

As a Green member, one would presume he is pro-EU, given that rejoining possibly without even holding a referendum is part of the party’s offer. And indeed, he previously stood unsuccessfully for the small Rejoin EU party in the 2024 London Assembly election.

But he’s also stood for UKIP, the pro-Brexit SDP, the niche pro-Brexit Welsh nationalist party Gwlad and the very right wing English Democrats (“They turned out to be not really nice characters at all”).

Just how confused is Williams? “I’ve met so many people over the years, including parliamentarians, and it’s altered my thinking as I’ve gone along,” he told the LondonCentric newsletter this week. I’ll say!