EUAN McCOLM: Farage might have offended liberal Scots but he isn't screaming into a void when it comes to immigration

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

So much for Nigel Farage, the daring swashbuckler of modern politics.
The Reform leader styles himself the fearless defender of the priorities of ordinary people, the renegade who takes on vested interests while declaring uncomfortable truths.
But Mr Farage's brio departed him during a visit to Scotland on Monday when he ducked out of a press event called by his own party.
The Reform leader had travelled north in advance of Thursday's Hamilton, Larkhall, and Stonehouse by-election and the media was told to expect access to a 'walkabout' he'd be doing with candidate Ross Lambie.
However, details of the event remained unforthcoming and Mr Farage later posted photos online showing him strolling through Larkhall with Mr Lambie, untroubled by the scrutiny of the press.
Perhaps Mr Farage was reticent to spend more time with my colleagues from the Holyrood lobby on Monday after an earlier press conference turned rather ugly.
Last week, the Reform leader defended his party's creation of a Facebook ad which claimed Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar had declared the needs of the Scottish Pakistani community his priority.
Challenged over this untrue claim at a press conference in Aberdeen on Monday morning, Mr Farage doubled down, wrongly stating Mr Sarwar had said the south Asian community was 'going to take over the world'.
'To be frank,' said the Reform leader, 'Mr Sarwar has a record of obsessing on this issue. There was the famous speech that he gave in the Scottish Parliament saying, why is the judiciary white? Why are, you know, these leading figures in Scotland white?
'It was the most extraordinary speech given the statistics and figures here. Actually, I think that speech that he gave was sectarian in its very nature.'
This was both deeply unfair and wildly reckless.
Mr Sarwar has always been a strong advocate for integration, for the breaking down of barriers between those of different races and religions.
If he has talked pointedly about race, it has been to describe his personal experience. This is something he has done with courage and dignity.
Mr Sarwar's interventions on the subjects of race and religion have been thoughtful and constructive and his opponents across Holyrood would not disagree.
What Mr Farage said will only fuel the anger of those who already despise Mr Sarwar for his race.
None of that matters to Reform, of course. The truth of what Mr Sarwar may have said in the past was less important than an opportunity to exploit a much undiscussed aspect of Scotland - concern over immigration.
A report published by Migration Policy Scotland last year revealed that more than 40 per cent of Scots would like to see a reduction in the numbers of immigrants permitted to enter and remain in the United Kingdom.
This might be a minority but it is a substantial one and none of the mainstream parties have been willing to go anywhere near the concerns of these people.
On Monday, Mr Farage may have deeply offended liberal sensibilities but he also spoke loudly and clearly to a lot of voters who feel ignored by both the SNP and Scottish Labour.
For a long time, the approach adopted by Scottish politicians to tackling Mr Farage was to treat him as an irrelevance. He was nothing more than the living representation of the differences between Scottish and English 'values'.
But, despite the best efforts of the SNP to shape a narrative of some fundamental difference between the moralities of the Scots and the English, on issues such as immigration people think very much alike, regardless of which side of the border they live on.
Without pandering to the Reform leader, First Minister John Swinney, Anas Sarwar, and Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay will have to find way of talking to voters about some of the questions he raises. Mr Farage is not screaming into a void.
Of course, every racist would like to see immigration reduced but that does not mean everyone who would like to see immigration reduced is a racist. If the leaders of the traditional parties do not make this distinction, they will continue to leave this issue ripe for exploitation by the populist right.
Support for Reform is not, however, fuelled solely by anger over immigration.
Nigel Farage is currently benefiting from the powerful, if rather nebulous, idea that he is the sort of person required to 'shake up' politics.
In common with the late Alex Salmond, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and US President Donald Trump, Mr Farage has the status, among his supporters, of outsider. He's the anti-establishment firebrand who'll put an end to the rotten politics that has failed them for years.
John Swinney must, I'm sure, recognise the dark irony of this.
In the years before the SNP won its first Holyrood election in 2007, it carefully styled itself a fresh alternative to a stale Labour party that had lost touch with the people it represented.
Nationalist leader Alex Salmond used the same rhetoric, of voters 'failed' by the complacent parties of the mainstream, now so effectively deployed by Mr Farage.
In a couple of days we'll know whether Reform's Ross Lambie has pulled off what would be the most astonishing election victory in the history of the Scottish Parliament.
Both the SNP and Scottish Labour remain publicly confident they can take the seat, made vacant by the untimely death of sitting SNP MSP Christina McKelvie, but both are privately concerned about the extent to which Reform will eat up votes on which they could previously have depended.
Election analyst Professor Sir John Curtice reckons the chances of a Reform victory on Thursday slender. He predicts an SNP hold, on a reduced majority.
But Sir John warns Labour, if its vote share heavily declines, faces the humiliation of coming third behind Mr Farage's party.
Victory in this week's by-election is not essential for Reform. With less than a year to go until the next Holyrood election, the party will be happy with a result that suggests momentum. As things stand, that looks all but guaranteed.
Reform stands to pick up a number of Scottish Parliamentary seats next May. On current polling, no party would have an overall majority, leading to the prospect of any government having to depend, on some matters, on the votes of Reform MSPs.
Having caused a political revolution as the leading figure in the Brexit campaign, Nigel Farage is now on the brink of wielding considerable power and influence in Scotland.