Reform launched their Scottish manifesto yesterday. The party is aiming to set itself up as the prime beneficiary of a Tory collapse north of the border, which was apparently foreshadowed by last year’s Hamilton by-election in which Reform came third (and the Tories fourth).
Nigel Farage thinks Reform could win the second-highest number of seats in May’s Scottish parliamentary election thanks to a strong showing in the regional list system.
Yesterday, Reform’s main pitch was on the healthcare question, which has dominated the election so far along with the economy. But the party’s Scottish leader, Malcolm Offord, also made a sideswipe at illegal migration. Given immigration is now rated the third-highest priority for Scottish voters, the party is hoping to capitalise on the rising salience of the issue. For example, Glasgow is the local authority area with the highest number of asylum seekers in the UK, and Reform see this as a way to break the SNP’s dominance (the raw numbers are higher in Greater London but the area is split across 32 different boroughs).
Change is afoot. Reform – along with Farage’s previous political enterprises (namely, the Brexit Party and Ukip) – has long been written off as a phenomenon of English nationalism, and Farage considered politically toxic north of the border. But now the polls suggest that Farage is no longer the most unpopular UK political leader in Scotland. That place has been taken by Keir Starmer. Despite Scottish Labour briefly polling well in the summer of 2024, and its leader, Anas Sarwar, disavowing Starmer, the party’s popularity has flagged. This provides Farage with the opportunity to cause another political earthquake.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
[Further reading: How ready is Britain for fuel shortages?]
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