When the SNP won a majority in the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, 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 was flabbergasted and asked myself why I had believed completely the opposite all my life without every trying to make it evidence based.
[2] He defeated Labour's Russell Brown, who had held the Dumfries and Galloway seat since its creation ten years prior in 2005.
[10] Arkless lost his seat in the UK 2017 general election to Conservative MP Alister Jack.
[11] At the 2019 election, Arkless contested the Dumfries and Galloway seat again as the SNP candidate.