Election / Reform candidate aims to end political frustration and net zero
Interview is part of Shetland News’ series of features on all eight candidates before 7 May election
AFTER weeks in the shadows, Reform candidate Vic Currie went from being the Shetland election’s invisible man to one of its most photographed this week.
Questions were being asked a fortnight ago whether Currie was even a real person, or just a name assigned to a space on the ballot paper.
But he quashed those rumours in the most surprising fashion, arriving in to the centre of Lerwick with his party’s UK leader Nigel Farage on Tuesday morning.
While Farage beat a hasty retreat, Currie stuck around to attend two hustings events this week – one hosted by BBC Radio Shetland, and another by Anderson High School.
Currie – a former helicopter pilot in the Royal Navy – is now juggling working as a junior doctor with his campaign to represent Shetland as Reform MSP.
Should he fail to win over the public in the constituency vote, he still stands a major chance of being elected as an MSP because of his standing as Reform’s top list candidate for the Highlands and Islands.
Currie says that first-hand experience of mainstream parties mismanaging key services is what led him to stand for Reform UK.
“Reform is the only party I can see that is offering a truly common sense alternative to the high-tax, managerial status quo,” he told Shetland News.
“Our manifesto commits to the prioritisation of front-line workers over unaccountable quangos.”
This week may have seemed like a baptism of fire for Currie, with his and Farage’s planned walkthrough the street on Tuesday being targeted by counter-protestors angry at the party’s policies.
He says, however, that he has had “encouraging conversations with many Shetlanders” during his time in the isles this week.
“There is a lot of frustration with the job being done by parties at both Holyrood and Westminster, a feeling of being forgotten,” he said.
“People I have spoken to seem deeply unimpressed with a professional class of politicians that simply tell them what’s best for them without ever having set foot here.
“These very common themes most closely align with Reform’s principles of decentralisation and cutting bureaucracy and it’s my job to convince them that a vote for us is a vote in their best interests.”
Currie’s comments that people are unimpressed with politicians who have never set foot in Shetland came just days after he himself made his first trip to the isles.
But Currie has pledged to move to Shetland – if he is elected as its new MSP at the Holyrood elections on 7 May.
“The people of Shetland deserve a representative embedded in the community, experiencing the same concerns and issues,” he said.
Currie has taken an unconventional route into politics, serving in the Navy – chiefly operating in the North Sea – after leaving university.
He then began training as a doctor in Edinburgh, currently working on the frontline of healthcare.
Asked if he felt sufficient time to give to the campaign, Currie said he was “totally committed” to it.
“Balancing a medical career with an election campaign isn’t easy but flying at sea in difficult conditions has developed my ability to deliver precision skill during high-tempo operational schedules,” he added.
He also denied that his campaign to be elected as Shetland’s MSP had taken a backseat because he now stands a good chance of election as a list MSP instead.
“The campaigns are one and the same,” Currie said. “Common-sense Reform for the Northern Isles and the wider region for a healthier, wealthier future.
“The constituency and regional campaigns sit side-by-side and we often travel to each other’s constituencies to help.”
Asked if Reform’s policies relate to Shetland and its people, Currie said they did – “more than any other party”.
He highlighted parts of Reform’s manifesto on energy, the cost of living, fisheries and infrastructure, and said they would boost the oil and gas sector and end net zero.
Ending net zero, he claimed, would free up “billions” to spend on ferry services and fixed links.
“The reinvigoration of our oil and gas sector will lower energy prices and make the cost of doing business cheaper, helping growth and lowering everyday costs,” Currie said.
“Leaving the EU offered a chance to revolutionise the framework under which our fishing sector operates, this has been squandered – we want our domestic sector to grow.”
Making his pitch for people to vote for him on 7 May, Currie said that people had the chance for change.
“If you want more and more of the same results – higher and higher taxes, lowering services, poorer educational outcomes, and resulting from decisions made by people who have never set foot on a boat or worked on a ward – then you have a range of parties to vote from.
“But if you feel that enough is enough, and want a representative with experience from outside the political bubble, who has defended our energy infrastructure and will fight to put the voter back at the heart of decision making in government, then vote Reform UK.”
There are seven more candidates contesting the Shetland seat. They are in alphabetical order: Alex Armitage (Greens), Douglas Barnett (Conservatives), John Erskine (Labour), Hannah Mary Goodlad (SNP), Emma Macdonald (Liberal Democrats), Brian Nugent (Alliance to Liberate Scotland) and Peter Tait (independent).
Shetland News intends to run features on each candidate in the run up to the vote on 7 May.
Read our feature with Peter Tait here.
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