Scotland at a crossroads: Reform UK, the ‘scunner factor’ and the 2026 election reckoning
By Calum Macdonald
25 July, 2025
The 2026 Scottish Parliamentary election could be one of the most consequential of the devolved Parliament. While there’s lots of news and drama and campaigning to happen between now and May 2026, the apparent rise in popularity of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK presents a real challenge to the complacency of parties who have become too comfortable with the jostling of the powers of Holyrood.
The SNP and Scottish Labour need to come up with substantive policy on education, health, transport. Your children need to be taught well, your parents need to get their medical appointments in a timely manner and islanders and tourists alike must be able to catch a ferry when they want, and need, to. The parties need to offer solutions to these things.
In the recent by-election in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, both Labour and the SNP focused on calling out Nigel Farage and, by extension, Reform UK. This is not enough for them to reclaim ground lost to his insurgency. Indeed, many of the people voting for Reform UK didn't put their X in that particular box up until now - they’ve been forced there by a feeling of futility, what my podcast co-host Geoff Aberdein calls “the scunner factor.”
The SNP and Labour need to win back these voters, not insult them. The Liberal Democrats, Scottish Conservatives and Scottish Greens must also consider their approach to Reform UK. While there is likely to be some sort of coalition running the Scottish Parliament beyond May 2026, there will certainly be a multitude of parties in opposition. Will they collaborate willingly?
What will be Farage’s pitch on independence? John Swinney recently faced criticism for not raising his party’s primary purpose more readily in public and with the Prime Minister who claimed it wasn’t a subject that was coming up. Should the SNP achieve a fifth term leading the administration, independence will be at the core of their next term. The PM has ruled out a second referendum on the issue. But, what if Nigel Farage achieves the heights of success and wins power at Westminster in 2029? He might be more willing to acquiesce to an SNP request for another vote.
The Scottish Labour party latched on to the inevitability of the Labour victory at last summer’s general election. Perhaps it distracted them - victory is addictive and deceptive. Their slump in the polls in Scotland is primarily caused by the unpopularity of their colleagues at Westminster. In Wales, the rise of Reform UK is a cause of similar consternation - and, theoretically, motivation - for the “established” parties. Reform UK won 43% of the vote in the ward of Liedi in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, in a recent local by-election. Labour’s vote plunged to just 23% - a drop of 35% percentage points.
The growing popularity of Nigel Farage’s party might be shallow and superficial. Or, it might be a real turning point in the political make-up of this country. He’s certainly running the table, even with only limited electoral representation, at the time of writing. That might be about to change. Labour’s landslide in the general election was always described as loveless - they had shallow, broad, support. It might be about to shatter under the pressure of Reform UK.
By Calum Macdonald, Presenter, Times Radio and host of the Holyrood Sources and Whitehall Source podcasts