Heckling of Nigel Farage will only help reinforce Reform UK's mantra

The National

2 days ago

Now we've got Farage here, and Trump there. But no matter how much many of us despise their politics, their popularity and their capacity to polarise opinion persists.
Last Wednesday Farage was actually present in parliament and asked a question at PMQs. That he was heckled, almost shouted down and not exclusively by Labour, must have been mood music to him and his followers. The government braying at this self-opinionated 'man of the people' will only help reinforce Reform's mantra: that they stand for the common folk, there on behalf of working people: anti-establishment as the establishment continues to get it oh so wrong.
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After all, just how long is the list of the Labour failures one year in, and who lost out? Not the millionaires, and I doubt if many in the knighted circles felt the pinch or worried about cutbacks. Techne UK's recently published poll put Reform ahead, Labour second and the Tories third-placed, 11 points behind Reform. That Reform manage to gloss over their failures and possible scandals as they acknowledge more Tory deserters, it is Labour who must be welcoming the summer recess: time to rest and regain momentum. But to us punters here, whatever seems to be on the horizon, it certainly isn't 'hope'. Hope that they do better? Backbenchers could come back emboldened, seeking more concessions, and party in-fighting is no good to anyone, far less a government.
Will the SNP take note? Labour have trouble brewing over proposed changes to specific sections of children's education. There's all those payments still due to victims of numerous scandals: the Post Office, war veterans, infected blood, Windrush. Bad news waiting at every turn, and no hope as Scotland is shafted again with Shanks and Miliband and their double larceny: energy theft and over-pricing.
No hope for Gaza and Palestinians as the Starmer government continues to deny the genocide, whilst supporting the apartheid state of Israel. No hopes for our diminishing money at the end of the month with the probability of tax increases in Reeves's autumn budget.
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Missteps are all that is required to boost Reform. Whatever they poll here in 2026, we will serve as their proving ground. With or without Scottish votes at the next General Election, they offer the prospect of breaking the two-party government system.
It's ironic, then, that Reform don't want to see positive change. They need the boats to continue, to see taxes rise, to see Westminster in disarray so their own chances will rise. They won't be offering hope, just some new mangled spin on change without substance.
So where's our hope here?
Just attacking Reform as extremist, inward-looking and not in line with the social leaning mores of the majority of us won't cut it. Reform want to be likened to the right-wing change happening in the USA, so decrying them without positive alternatives just victimises them. The danger of the SNP being the established government here is a godsend to Farage, the new anti-establishment. With Labour lurching further right, dog-whistling when it suits ("island of strangers"; a policy still to be put into practice of people trading, one in one out), Corbyn will probably garner left-leaning votes if he and his cohorts can get their act together for 2026. What a crowded landscape 2026 is going to be!
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What hope have we here as we get swept along, detritus-like and directionless with an absence of political leadership? There is an alternative to the right-wing populism being promoted by Unionists, right and left. But when will that alternative be spelled out by our politicians, or have they forgotten how to spell independence?
We can't depend on some short, sharp campaign in 2026, and with what? What messages will the grassroots be taking out? The same old same old messages we've tried in the past?
We need to be able to activate and motivate people to vote next year for all that independence can bring. It's way past the time of hand-wringing over the ills of the centuries-old Union. Now is the time and need to articulate practical steps that will lead to independence, and the benefits.
Failure won't lead to more of the same, but worse standards of living, a foreign policy that makes us complicit in genocide, restrictions going way beyond the erosion of freedom of speech. Who would vote for that? But voting for indy without a laid-out plan of action in the over-crowded pantomime that passes for democracy will be another wasted election, another wasted vote.
Selma Rahman
Edinburgh