What on earth is happening with Reform in Scotland? Without much effort on its part, it keeps breaking new ground. It is the best story in town.
A marmalade-dropper of a poll this week put the party on course to become the official opposition after next May’s Holyrood election. With something similar predicted at the Welsh Assembly, Reform may be on the cusp of achieving an extraordinary and unprecedented breakthrough at all political levels across the UK.
It is only one poll, of course, and it is the only one so far to suggest such a dramatic outcome in Edinburgh. But given Reform’s momentum and apparently growing appeal, it may not be the last. Conducted by Survation for the PR company True North, it puts the SNP in first place, with 33 per cent in the constituency vote and 29 per cent on the regional list. Reform is on 19 per cent on the former and 20 per cent on the latter. Scottish Labour is also on 19 per cent in the constituency vote but trails Reform by two points on the list.
The pollster Sir John Curtice estimates that this would give Nigel Farage’s party 21 seats to the SNP’s 59, with Labour on 18 and the Tories on just 13. The poll may prove to be an outlier, but it’s clear that something is happening. That it follows Reform’s triumph in last week’s English local elections and its victory at the Runcorn and Helsby by-election may not be a coincidence. Momentum breeds momentum. And in this regard Reform may be aping the other great British populist campaign of our times: the Scottish independence campaign.
The nature of the shift reminds me of a conversation with a friend who worked at a senior level in the 2014 Yes campaign, when support for independence soared from its traditional base of around 30 per cent to an eventual 45 per cent in the referendum result. He admitted that the Yes campaign leadership had lost control of the movement. The decision to vote for independence effectively became a virus, spreading from voter to voter without much help from the politicians. People who had never previously supported the step or voted SNP were attracted by the passion and romance of the moment. As my friend put it, they began giving each other permission to vote Yes.
I wonder whether there’s a similar contagion at play when it comes to Reform. Anecdotally, especially among older people of my acquaintance – Labour and Conservative voters both – there are groups of friends who all intend to vote Reform next May. Sometimes it’s down to unhappiness with immigration levels, sometimes it’s simply general disillusionment with the status quo and the mainstream parties. I’ve heard successful business people say that they might well vote Reform, and I’m unsure whether they were joking or not. As one political insider put it to me, “It’s spreading like a forest fire.”
All this is happening despite the party’s lack of a Scottish figurehead or any substantial political machine – the whole vehicle is very much seen as Farage’s baby. But this is telling in itself. Farage was once so unpopular north of the border that on a visit to Edinburgh in 2013 he was forced to hide from protestors in a pub then make his escape in the back of a police van. His high-profile, electoral successes and smartly targeted messaging seem to have changed all that.
If John Swinney’s recent anti-Reform summit, attended by all the opposition leaders bar the Tories, as well as the great and good of Scottish civic society, was intended to put the cork back in Farage’s bottle, it has failed. The more publicity the party receives, the more of a threat to the established order it’s painted as, the more it looks likely to amount to something significant at Holyrood, the better it seems to do. Its rise is breathtaking, and is being validated in real time.
In truth, this suits Swinney perfectly. Thanks to its new insurgent, the Unionist vote is fatally divided. Labour leader Anas Sarwar, who only months ago was competing to be the next First Minister, is currently a shrinking presence in Swinney’s rear-view mirror. Sarwar still believes he can win, but he risks becoming increasingly isolated in that view. The Conservatives meanwhile are done for, having never recovered from the departure of Ruth Davidson. This leaves Swinney sitting pretty, even if the Nats are nowhere near as popular as they once were. At this stage it looks like all he must do is avoid screwing up is to beware punter-irritating, Sturgeon-esque “progressive” policy interventions, keep seeming like a decent human being, not bang on about independence too loudly, and he’ll get to keep the keys to Bute House.
The next Scottish challenge for Reform is the Hamilton, Stonehouse & Larkhall Holyrood by-election on 5 June. Farage is expected to campaign in the constituency and may well end up in a pub – he usually does – but this time he won’t have to hide. He might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I still suspect he’ll still be bought a few pints.
[See also: What is Nigel Farage thinking now?]
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