When Scottish broadcaster STV recently hit the streets of Hamilton to gauge the mood of voters in advance of Thursday’s crucial byelection, its political editor Colin Mackay returned with a pithy one-word verdict. Locals, he said, were “scunnered” with politics.
This general mood of disdain towards the establishment parties has opened the door to a once-unthinkable proposition: Reform UK, Nigel Farage’s upstart English nationalist outfit, is now a serious contender in a constituency vote in Scotland.
Reform is still thought unlikely to win this week’s byelection for the Holyrood devolved parliament seat of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse; the Scottish National Party (SNP) is the favourite. But the mere fact that Reform is even capable of mounting a serious challenge illustrates the degree to which the sands are shifting in UK politics.
Polling guru John Curtice, a professor at Strathclyde University, believes the SNP should prevail in the byelection, but with potentially only a third of the vote. Meanwhile, Labour’s worst nightmare would be if Reform were to push it into third place.
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That would cement a narrative taking hold in British politics that says Reform, having conquered the Tories, is now coming for Labour’s votes. It could also be a harbinger that the SNP, which looked dead and buried a year ago after the Westminster election, could yet cling to power in Holyrood after next year’s devolved parliament elections.
With a dearth of constituency polling, Labour sources still hope the party could pull off a surprise win in this week’s Hamilton byelection. But for a Labour win to be seen as an outside prospect so soon after its supposed Scottish comeback last year shows just how its fortunes have dipped since winning power in Westminster.
This week’s byelection is in an area of Lanarkshire to the southeast of Glasgow. It was called following the death in March of the SNP’s Christina McKelvie, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
A large part of the devolved parliament constituency overlaps with the Westminster constituency of Labour MP Imogen Walker. She is married to Irish man Morgan McSweeney, UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s top adviser. That would make it even more embarrassing for the party were Reform to push it into third spot.
The area includes most of the large town of Hamilton, with its relatively depressed centre, as well as the town of Larkhall, a bastion of Glasgow Rangers support that was once tagged the “most sectarian town in Scotland”. Past articles have focused on the vandalism of anything in the town that was the colour green, synonymous with Irishness; the shopfront of the local Subway was repainted black by the company. Reform has canvassed heavily in Larkhall.
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The campaign has been nasty at times. Reform, whose candidate is former Tory Ross Lambie, ran an online ad targeting the leader of Scottish Labour, Anas Sarwar. It suggested he would “prioritise the Pakistani community”. Given Sarwar’s ethnic heritage, the jibe was criticised as “racist” by the other parties.
The SNP’s candidate is Katy Loudon, who unsuccessfully ran for the party in a Westminster byelection in 2023 and at last July’s national poll. Considering Reform is pulling most of its support from Labour and the Tories, it could be third time lucky for Loudon this week as Farage’s party further splits the pro-Union vote.
Labour surged to more than 35 per cent of the Scottish vote in the Westminster vote last year, but most recent opinion polls for Holyrood show it has given up that ground already. It is now neck-and-neck with Reform at just below 20 per cent, but can blame much of its Scottish woes on the unpopularity of Starmer’s UK government.
