In less than 72 hours, the polls will open in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse for a Scottish by-election like no other in recent memory. The Holyrood seat is located in the Central Belt, once unshakeably Labour and now firmly SNP. What makes this by-election so extraordinary is that Reform, a party which has never won an election in Scotland, has come from nowhere to mount a credible challenge to the mainstream parties. The bookmakers have Nigel Farage’s outfit as second-favourite to win on Thursday, and inside Labour and the SNP there are some who fear a drop in turnout and an electorate scunnered with the major parties could hand a narrow victory to Reform.
The likeliest outcome is that the SNP retains the seat. Leader John Swinney has worked hard to repair the party’s prospects after the abrupt departure of Nicola Sturgeon and a disastrous year under her hapless successor Humza Yousaf. If pro-independence voters turn out in sufficient numbers, that should guarantee victory for the Nationalists. While the Unionist vote faces a five-way split (Labour, Tory, Lib Dem, Reform and Ukip), the SNP’s only serious rival for pro-independence votes is the Scottish Green party, and they have never contested this seat before. Of course, by-elections are typically unpredictable and low turnouts can produce upsets.
A Reform victory would be the mother of all upsets, an act of democratic insurrection against the political mainstream. The Hamilton vacancy was created by the death from breast cancer of Christina McKelvie, left-wing SNP MSP and government minister. For her seat to go to Reform would be deeply painful on a personal level but it would also deliver a political concussion to the SNP. Swinney has been talking up the threat of Nigel Farage to the Tories and Labour, but if Reform is able to win in Hamilton then it’s anyone’s guess what happens in next year’s Scottish parliament elections. Even if Reform comes second, which seems more plausible than first place, it will leave the political mainstream reeling. This is a party with no Scottish hinterland, no campaign machine, and, for that matter, no leader north of the border. Second place on Thursday would point to significant gains next year, with Reform possibly becoming the main opposition party at Holyrood.
That we are even speculating on the possibility of such eventualities is psychically troubling to the Scottish establishment, who tell themselves that Scotland is too enlightened and progressive to fall for the sort of right-wing, anti-immigration populism that English voters get tricked by. (When the voters vote right-wing, it must be because the simpletons were fooled, not because they simply wanted right-wing policies.) And no one could deny that Reform has run a populist, immigration-flavoured campaign in Hamilton.
Media coverage has been dominated by a social media video in which Reform claimed that Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, a Glaswegian born to Pakistani immigrant parents, had ‘said he will prioritise the Pakistani community’. Sarwar has said no such thing but the furore allowed Reform to surface videos of speeches in which he complained about the prevalence of white people in senior public roles in Scotland and state that South Asian communities would soon ‘get to decide not just which school our children go to but what they are taught in those schools’. Sarwar and other party leaders have accused Reform of racism but the video nevertheless seems to have cut through. Labour was already facing an uphill battle in a constituency where Rachel Reeves’ benefit cuts will hit hard, both the changes to Universal Credit eligibility and the removal of the winter fuel payment. Labour people feel Labour is no longer for them.
Six months ago, I wrote on Coffee House that Scottish political elites were underpricing the threat from Reform, but even I’ve been surprised by the progress the party has made in a short space of time. There will always be a constituency for a Vote Here If You Hate Politicians party and that is what Reform is campaigning as in Hamilton. Whether it’s enough to help them prise a heartland seat from the SNP is an open question. That it is a question at all tells me that Thursday won’t be the last the Scottish establishment hears from Reform.
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