Scotland and its resistance to the Right Wing
By Iain McLean
Scotland faces one of its most important days this week as Scottish voters head to the polls today.
With the rise of Reform and Restore, two far-right parties, currently sweeping every English projection and opinion poll, can Scotland defy the odds?
Nigel Farage’s ‘Reform UK’ and Rupert Lowe’s ‘Restore Britain’ have found themselves on a meteoric rise since Keir Starmer was elected as Prime Minister in 2024. They now threaten every current party in Holyrood, with the Scottish Conservatives projected to take the biggest hit, with a 20-seat loss.
While the SNP is set to win an outright majority, something that the Holyrood system was created to avoid, the race for opposition is the closest it has ever been.
Every election poll has differing numbers, but it comes down to two key parties: The Greens and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which will be led by Lord Malcolm Offord.
While Reform has lost every by-election they have participated in Scotland, they are projected to win 19 seats, while the Greens are trailing behind with 16 seats, according to the latest data released by Norstatuk.
This data is worrying to Scottish residents because Scotland has gained some notoriety and been dubbed “the most leftist country in Europe” by republican pundits in the US. The main issue obviously being that Scotland historically has always been welcoming to immigrants. However, the appearance of Reform can tarnish that reputation, for better or for worse.
It also potentially strives to divide the country more than it has ever been, with tensions running high between supporters and critics. The latest instance of this is former Conservative Councillor, Thomas Kerr, who recently defected to Reform, being attacked on the street while canvassing this week.
This can be seen as the equivalent to what happened after the Scottish Independence Referendum in September 2014. Glaswegians gathered in the city centre watching a live broadcast of the results only for pro-unionist supporters to attack pro-independence supporters, which resulted in police intervention and the streets cleared.
Reform has been continuously called out for stoking division and punishing those that won’t vote for them, with the latest example of this being Nigel Farage announcing ‘detention centres’ will be built across England, with green constituencies being targeted for this policy first.
Though there has been no policy announced for detention centres in Scotland, there has been clear tensions between Reform and its supporters against every left-leaning party, with the main targets being the Greens and SNP.
This rears its ugly head mostly on social media, with posts directly targeting the character of candidates on both sides, rather than the policies themselves.
Both Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe have filed police reports after receiving death threats and harassment, with the former stating he “feared a migrant would come to England to shoot him” following a TikTok video uploaded by Afghanistan immigrant, Fayaz Khan, who was later jailed for five years.
On the other side of this, Zack Polanski was harassed by “agitators”, with one Nazi saluting during a Green Party rally in Hastings.
Thankfully, threats or harassment of this level haven’t appeared in Scotland. The assault of Thomas Kerr has the potential to open a retaliatory can of worms.
This is what Scotland must resist. The devolution of Scotland was founded on ‘leftist’ ideology, with Labour politician, Donald Dewer, becoming Scotland’s inaugural First Minister.
Scotland must remain a bastion of social acceptance, immigration and anti-fascism in the world, particularly as we witness the rise of a far right, potentially fascist party projected to step into Number 10 in 2029.