Background
Arkless was born in Stranraer in 1975.
Arkless was born in Stranraer in 1975.
He received a Bachelor in Financial Services from Glasgow Caledonian University and has an Bachelor of Laws from the University of Strathclyde.
He spent an early part of his childhood living in London. He returned to Stranraer when he was eight years old. Arkless began to advocate Scottish Independence after the 2007 Scottish Parliament election in which the Scottish National Party were elected as a minority government.
After a year he said the Scottish National Party were "doing a pretty good job".
I couldn’t believe that Scotland had a higher per capita Gross Domestic Product, and much higher per capita tax-take over each of the last 35 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 Scottish National Party in the 2015 United Kingdom General Election, Arkless received 23,440 votes, 41.4% of those cast, with a majority of 6,514.
He defeated Labour"s Russell Brown, who had held the seat since its creation in 2005. Arkless left his job as a solicitor to run an online business.
When the Scottish National Party won a majority in the 2011 Scottish election, he said in a May 2015 interview with The National, "I began to really research the figures – the Gross Domestic Product and tax-take – and I was completely and utterly astonished.
56th United Kingdom Parliament.