“Storm clouds are gathering. We can all see them.” No, not Winston Churchill on the rise of the Nazis in Europe, but John Swinney on the march of the “far right” in Scotland. Today, the First Minister will host a “mobilisation of mainstream Scotland” against Reform and its “racist” leader, Nigel Farage, who he says, in all seriousness, could be “the next Prime Minister.”
The man the Scottish left loves to hate will no doubt be at a bar toasting Swinney’s prediction
Swinney’s breathless scaremongering is because Reform is making progress in his own backyard. A Survation poll places them at 17 per cent in the constituency vote for the 2026 Scottish parliament elections, 5 per cent ahead of the Scottish Conservatives. If that were to be replicated on polling day, Farage’s party could have 19 seats in Holyrood, two more than the Conservatives.
Reform is taking votes from Labour and the SNP too, which is something “civic” Scotland finds profoundly disturbing. It has been an article of faith amongst the political classes in Scotland that Scots are immune to the politics of the right. This progressive presumption dates back over thirty years to Margaret Thatcher and the poll tax, when Scottish voters did appear to be predominantly left-wing. Clearly, this may no longer be the case.
The Scottish left is bewildered by the rise of Reform, which they regard as an essentially English phenomenon to do with immigration. Immigration has never been a big issue in Scottish politics. This may not be unrelated to the fact that there is very little of it around. Scotland is 95 per cent white. In the last census, only 1 per cent of Scots described themselves as Black or African/Caribbean, and only 4 per cent as Asian. The most frequently cited racism in Scotland in recent years has been anti-English racism. But there has been no groundswell of opposition to immigration from overseas.
Nor have there been grooming gang scandals in Scotland. Small boats are not fetching up on Scottish beaches. So what is going on? How can Jock Tamson’s Bairns, as progressive Scots like to call themselves, be susceptible to the poison-tongued populists of Reform?
The key is that word, “populist”. The Scottish National Party is not so far removed from Faragisme as it would like to think. Indeed, the SNP is arguably the original national populist party in Scotland. It is not long ago that metropolitan commentators and politicians regarded the late Alex Salmond in much the same light as they regard Nigel Farage today: as a nationalist demagogue and rabble-rouser.
Not for nothing did Nicola Sturgeon say she wanted to remove the word “National” from the party name. As a dedicated progressive, she was uncomfortably aware that many of her most active members were outright nationalists – and white nationalists to boot.
Salmond adopted many left-wing tropes and policies, like same-sex marriage and the abolition of university tuition fees. But this kind of triangulation is what nationalist parties often do. It’s like Reform backing the nationalisation of British Steel, or arguing for a windfall tax on the banks. Salmond, a former oil economist with the Royal Bank, was never as left-wing as he appeared. He warned Sturgeon not to be “diverted into the highways and byways of identity politics”.
Sturgeon didn’t listen and went on to alienate legions of SNP voters with measures like transgender Self-ID, the Named Person scheme, and the Hate Crime Act. Add to that the discontent about 800,000 Scots on hospital waiting lists and the SNP’s repeated tax increases and it is not hard to imagine why some Scots are now looking for a way of expressing their disgust. The SNP must realise, if only subliminally, that there is another kid now on the nationalist block.
Reform is likely to come up against a cultural glass ceiling pretty soon. Only a small minority of Scots resent English people, but there is undoubtedly an aversion to English politicians, just as there is an aversion to English football teams. Farage’s party is also all over the place, moreover, on the constitution, and until recently Farage seemed to want to abolish – or at least radically reform – the Scottish parliament. His party has done remarkably well capitalising on discontent at the establishment parties in Scotland. But the SNP is already shifting its policy agenda to meet the tenor of the times. Swinney has reversed many of Sturgeon’s pet policies, including gender reform.
Farage is threatening to come north next month to campaign in a by-election in Hamilton, scene of the SNP’s great electoral breakthrough in 1967. Reform is not going to replicate Winnie Ewing’s sensational victory. And Farage will no doubt be barracked by anti-racist demonstrators, as he was ten years ago, when he had to take refuge in a pub. But this time around, the man the Scottish left loves to hate will no doubt be at a bar toasting Swinney’s prediction that he’s the next PM.
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