Nigel Farage’s party is taking heat for a Meta ad it has run as part of the Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse by-election. (The incumbent MSP, the SNP’s Christina McKelvie, died from breast cancer in March.) Reform is pushing its candidate, local councillor Ross Lambie, and claims it stands a chance of capturing the seat, which would have been ludicrous not so long ago and is still hard to fathom today. A Reform victory here in Lanarkshire would be a historic upset and would give credence to a series of polls which suggest the party is on course to make gains in next year’s Holyrood elections.
The disputed ad, which ran on Facebook and Instagram, drew a contrast between Reform, which would ‘prioritise the people of Larkhall, Hamilton & Stonehouse’, and Labour’s Scotland leader Anas Sarwar, who ‘has said he will prioritise the Pakistani community’. The ad includes clips from a September 2022 speech Sarwar gave to mark the 75th anniversary of Pakistani independence.
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