In a new interview, Ms Sturgeon was asked whether Mr Farage could one day lead the country.
She told the Financial Times: “Five years ago, I would have said it’s impossible. I don’t think that any more.”
She criticised the UK Government’s decision to cut pensioners’ winter fuel payments before raising taxes on businesses.
The government’s claims the benefit had to be cut earlier for administrative reasons “sound like the sort of excuses you’d come up with to explain your own stupidity”.
The former Scottish first minister urged Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to “make the case for immigration” instead of playing into the “tougher” approaches that “colludes” with Mr Farage’s views.
New polling put Mr Farage’s party level with Labour on 25%.
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The Find Out Now survey showed a significant jump in popularity for Reform, while the Tories are five points behind with 20% across the UK.
It has also been suggested that Reform could do well in Scotland’s 2026 election.
First Minister John Swinney recently warned his political opponents – namely Labour and the Tories – to back the 2025-26 budget or risk giving rise to Mr Farage’s party.
It comes after the SNP suffered a significant defeat in July’s general election, returning just nine MPs, down 39 from 2021.
In the Financial Times interview, Ms Sturgeon has admitted she takes “a fair chunk of responsibility” of that result.
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“Whether I always sound it or not, I’m somebody who tends to blame myself for things,” she said.
“But the more that time passes, I think it’s harder to keep blaming me for things… There’s some irony: the SNP didn’t lose an election when I was leader, but somehow the first one that they lost when I wasn’t leader was all my fault.”
Ms Sturgeon stepped down in February 2023, citing the toll the job had taken on her personal life after eight years.
Humza Yousaf replaced her in a tumultuous leadership election against Kate Forbes and Ash Regan. But after a year, he was forced to resign after abruptly ending the Bute House Agreement with the Scottish Greens.
Mr Swinney led the party through the poor election result and has tried to steady the ship in recent months.
But Ms Sturgeon has warned her party to be “careful” in how it tries to move away from the leadership of Ms Sturgeon and her predecessor Alex Salmond.
She told FT: “I think care needs to be taken in moving the party away from the position from which it won eight elections under me and I can’t remember how many under Alex [Salmond] before me . . . If you want to move it away from that, be careful that you know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it and that you’ve thought through the electoral consequences.”