Reform united kingdom are down but not out – Scotland must beware

thenational.scot · Mar 2, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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IT’S a truism to say by-elections don’t tell us very much about how people will vote in a General Election. But they do tell us something. And last Thursday’s Gorton and Denton by-election in the Northwest of England has lessons for us all as we approach the Scottish General Election in nine weeks’ time. Worth saying some of the usual caveats do not apply in this one. Usually, for example, the turnout at by-elections plummets compared to general elections tending to skew the stats by exaggerating shifts in vote share. Not so here, more people actually voted last Thursday than did in July 2024. So, whatever happened it cannot just be blamed on jaundiced or apathetic Labour voters staying at home. Nor is the story one of disaffection of Labour by Muslim voters and others over Gaza. Remember that in July 2024 the Labour vote had already been slashed for that very reason, with the pro-Palestine Workers Party picking up close to four thousand votes. Last Thursday that rift between the Labour Party and one of its important demographics was solidified as they found a new champion. READ MORE: Petition on pro-Israel influence in UK politics hits threshold for Commons debate The big story was the success of the Greens. Fair play to them. They not only won they became the vehicle for a clear majority of those electors wishing to distance themselves from the racist right. In large part this was a consequence of Labour’s own actions as they abandoned any radical social and economic stance, giving a free run to Zack Polanski’s brand of eco-socialism. Hannah Spencer, the straight-talking new Green MP, was on the money when she was asked if by hurting Labour her party might help Reform. “Is there really that much difference between Labour and Reform?” she asked. Clearly, most former Labour voters agreed with her. In fairness there is a significant difference, but what matters is perception. Labour’s strategy of trying to gain votes by aping Reform’s polices now lies in tatters. So much so that one opinion poll suggests that only 38% of those who voted Labour 19 months ago would do so today. There’s nothing Labour can do about it in the short term. Even as Streeting, Miliband and Rayner go on manoeuvres, Starmer and his lieutenants have no option but to hunker down in the Number 10 bunker. But after May there will have to be changes or the party is over. There are plenty of places in England where the Greens could replicate last Thursday’s win, where the mix of immigrant communities, students and liberal minded people dwarfs xenophobic Brexiteers. But what of Scotland. Well, not really. The SNP already offers an alternative to the Westminster duopoly and although there is dissatisfaction at the performance of the Scottish Government it’s in a different league to Starmer’s. And the Scottish Green Party is a very different beast, seeming to concentrate on what might be called core green values rather than Polanski’s socialist agenda. Interestingly Spencer’s acceptance speech focused on the cost of living, NHS and wealth inequality, with not a mention of environment or identity. But the second lesson from last Thursday is that Reform got 29% of the votes in a seat that was very far down their target list. Could that happen in Scotland? Yes, it could. We should take the Gorton and Denton result as a wake-up call to guard against complacency. For the SNP there are three arguments to be deployed. The first is that in a country where half of the population want to become independent there is no greater obstacle to that aspiration than Reform UK. They are not only supporters of the status quo they are the Union’s most extreme advocates. Secondly, there’s no harm at all in a dose of old-fashioned class politics. Time to tell it like it is. Reform UK are not only a refuge for extreme right wingers deserting the sinking ship of the Conservatives, they are also unashamedly the party of billionaires. Far from shaking things up, they support an economic system rigged in favour of the wealthy. And any changes they would make will make the rich richer and the rest of us poorer. Thirdly and most importantly, we need to talk up the notion of political independence as an agent of change. The biggest single group on my canvass returns is still the disillusioned, the people who say a plague on all our houses. We know that Reform are tapping into that resentment and alienation, offering a false prospectus of changing the system. It’s lies of course. Reform would keep the monarchy, the House of Lords, exacerbate class and race divisions and weaken public regulation of the economy. The truth is that the biggest change of all would be to get rid of the political structure which constrains our ability to decide things for ourselves, which allows our natural resources to enrich others, rather than the people who live here. Independence is the greatest disrupter, the greatest threat to the status quo and to the power and privilege of the minority who benefit from it. That’s why Reform oppose it as passionately as we believe it.