What’s behind Reform’s surge in Scotland?

Five years ago, Reform UK had no presence in Scotland. Its Facebook and Twitter pages emerged during the latter half of the pandemic and despite briefly experiencing four months in Holyrood courtesy of a Tory defector, the group has since then remained very much out of sight and mind. Nigel Farage neglected Scotland during last year’s general election campaign, his deputy Richard Tice visited just once and the group still lacks a Scottish leader. Despite all that, however, Reform is shaping to become kingmaker in the 2026 Holyrood election. 

On Thursday, The Spectator revealed that Thomas Kerr, the Scottish Conservative’s leader on Glasgow City Council and onetime Westminster by-election candidate, had defected to Reform. ‘Politically it was easy,’ he tells me – blaming his former party for having ‘fallen into the trap of being part of the left-wing consensus’ in Holyrood – ‘but emotionally, it was very hard.’