It has long been an article of faith on the nationalist Left that the Scots are immune to the politics of the “far-Right”. However, bien pensant Scots have had to confront the uncongenial reality that Nigel Farage’s party is undergoing a remarkable rise north of the border. It is now edging ahead of the Scottish Conservatives in recent polls, despite having had little organisation on the ground before the general election.

Now Nigel Farage is coming north next month to rub their faces in it. His expected appearance in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election, caused by the death of the SNP MSP Christina McKelvie, will be his first visit since 2019.

Scotland has not exactly been a welcoming place for Farage in the past. In 2013, he was famously besieged by independence supporters in Edinburgh’s Royal Mile and had to seek refuge in a pub until he was rescued by police. Protesters called the then UKIP leader “racist scum”. Well, if that is indeed what he is, there now seems to be rather a lot of racist sympathisers in Scotland.

In the latest Survation poll, Reform is at 17% of the constituency vote, enough to deliver up to 19 seats in the 2026 Holyrood elections — five more than the Tories. It could just conceivably hold the balance of power, since the SNP is expected to fall short of an absolute majority.

That is a prospect that horrifies “civic” Scotland. How can this be, they wonder, when immigration hasn’t been a major issue in Scotland? Although there are now some rumblings from council leaders that Glasgow can’t cope with the number of asylum seekers in the city, Scotland is 95% white, there are relatively few ethnic minorities living in isolated communities and there have been no major grooming gang scandals like those seen in England. The SNP government has also been calling for relaxed visa rules so that more migrants can come to work here.

But Scotland’s supposed hatred of the Right has always been a myth. Scots vote SNP largely because it is the patriotic thing to do — not because of its support for transgender ideology, mass immigration, and Net Zero. A million Scots voted for Brexit in 2016. Most think that it is a mistake to shut down the North Sea oil and gas industry. They opposed Nicola Sturgeon’s gender bill by a margin of two to one.

Above all, it is the cost of living crisis — plus the sense that nothing works — that is attracting Scottish voters to Reform. Scots are not immune to national populism; indeed, the Scottish National Party used to be the very image of a cultural nationalist party until Alex Salmond turned it Left in the Nineties. Before he became leader, it opposed membership of the European Economic Community (EEC), demanded “Scotland’s Oil” wealth and had little interest in identity politics, unless it was Scottish identity.

In 1967, Hamilton was the scene of the SNP’s great electoral breakthrough when Winnie Ewing won a Westminster by-election. Reform is not going to repeat that success. But the mere presence of a grinning Nigel Farage will raise nationalist hackles. The First Minister, John Swinney, has called for all parties in Scotland to unite against the far-Right. The Reform UK leader will no doubt insist that the anti-English SNP are the racists, not him.

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Iain Macwhirter was political commentator for The Herald between 1999 and 2022. He is the author of Disunited Kingdom: How Westminster Won a Referendum But Lost Scotland.

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