Richard Lambert Thomas Arkless (born 7 July 1975) is a

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic party. The party holds 61 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, and holds 9 out of the 57 Scottish seats in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, ...

politician, who was elected as MP for

Dumfries and Galloway Dumfries and Galloway (; ) is one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland, located in the western part of the Southern Uplands. It is bordered by East Ayrshire, South Ayrshire, and South Lanarkshire to the north; Scottish Borders to the no ...

at the 2015 UK general election. He lost his seat at the following election in 2017.

Background and education

Arkless was born in

Stranraer Stranraer ( , in Scotland also ; ), also known as The Toon or The Cleyhole, is a town in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, on Loch Ryan and the northern side of the isthmus joining the Rhins of Galloway to the mainland. Stranraer is Dumfries ...

in 1975. He spent an early part of his childhood living in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. He returned to Stranraer when he was eight years old. He received a BA in Financial Services from

Glasgow Caledonian University Glasgow Caledonian University, informally GCU, Caledonian or Caley (), is a public university in Glasgow, Scotland. It was formed in 1993 by the merger of The Queen's College, Glasgow (founded in 1875) and Glasgow Polytechnic (originally Glasg ...

and has an LLB from the

University of Strathclyde The University of Strathclyde () is a public research university located in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1796 as the Andersonian Institute, it is Glasgow's second-oldest university, having received its royal charter in 1964 as the first techn ...

Political career

Arkless began to advocate

Scottish independence Scottish independence (; ) is the idea of Scotland regaining its independence and once again becoming a sovereign state, independent from the United Kingdom. The term Scottish independence refers to the political movement that is campaignin ...

after the

2007 Scottish Parliament election The 2007 Scottish Parliament election was held on Thursday 3 May 2007 to elect members to the Scottish Parliament. It was the third general election to the devolved Scottish Parliament since it was created in 1999. 2007 Scottish local elections, ...

in which the SNP were elected as a

minority government A minority government, minority cabinet, minority administration, or a minority parliament is a government and cabinet formed in a parliamentary system when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in ...

for the first time. After a year, he said the SNP were "doing a pretty good job". When the SNP won a

majority A majority is more than half of a total; however, the term is commonly used with other meanings, as explained in the "#Related terms, Related terms" section below. It is a subset of a Set (mathematics), set consisting of more than half of the se ...

in the

2011 Scottish Parliament election The 2011 Scottish Parliament election was held on Thursday, 5 May 2011 to elect 129 members to the Scottish Parliament. The election delivered the first majority government since the opening of Holyrood, a remarkable feat as the Additional M ...

, he said in a May 2015 interview with '' The National'', "I began to really research the figures – the GDP and tax-take – and I was completely and utterly astonished. I couldn't believe that Scotland had a higher per capita GDP, and much higher per capita tax-take over each of the last thirty-five years. I was flabbergasted and asked myself why I had believed completely the opposite all my life without every trying to make it evidence based." Standing for the SNP at the

2015 United Kingdom general election The 2015 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 7 May 2015 to elect 650 Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons. The Conservative Party (U ...

, Arkless received 23,440 votes, 41.4% of those cast, winning with a majority of 6,514 votes. He defeated Labour's Russell Brown, who had held the Dumfries and Galloway seat since its creation ten years prior in 2005. His wife Anne worked as his personal assistant. Arkless lost his seat in the UK 2017 general election to

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

MP Alister Jack. He received 16,701 votes, 32.4% of those cast. At the 2019 election, Arkless contested the

seat again as the SNP candidate. He received 20,873 of the votes, 40.6% of those cast. He lost out to the Scottish Secretary, Alister Jack for a second time.

Business career

Arkless left his job as a solicitor to run an online business. He returned to his career as a solicitor in 2020 following his retirement from politics.

References

External links

Personal webpageProfile
on SNP website * {{DEFAULTSORT:Arkless, Richard 1975 births People educated at Stranraer Academy Alumni of Glasgow Caledonian University Alumni of the University of Strathclyde Living people Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Scottish constituencies People from Stranraer Scottish National Party MPs Scottish solicitors UK MPs 2015–2017