Reform UK's success in Scotland? You can blame the media for that

The National

16-05-2025

The SNP have comfortably won a council by-election in West Dunbartonshire with 1331 first preference votes, well ahead of the second-placed candidate who picked up 919 first preference votes. Worryingly, that second placed candidate was standing for the hard right Anglo-British nationalist Reform UK party – or should I say – Nigel Farage's private limited company.
Labour fell into a poor third place, with just 770 first preference votes. The Tory vote collapsed, with their candidate receiving just 87 first-preference votes, falling into a humiliating fourth place behind the LibDems and just four votes ahead of the Scottish Greens.
Again we see the phenomenon of Reform UK, a party which has very limited local organisation in Scotland, and no Holyrood policies to speak of, performing well in a Scottish election.
READ MORE: Why the Clydebank by-election is a landmark moment – like it or no
This is entirely due to the uncritical platforming given to the hard-right by the UK media and is a perfect example of how Scottish domestic politics are being deformed by our immersion in a UK media which is naturally focused on the much larger and politically more conservative England and in which Scotland is paid lip service at best.
As always with Scottish council by elections, turnout was painfully low, at just 25.3%, which is only around 2954 out of 11,657 eligible voters. The real winner in this election, as is typical in council by elections, was apathy and lack of interest.
But given that there is usually very little advance publicity given to council by-elections, even some people who are politically informed and engaged will not have voted simply because the didn't realise a by-election was taking place.
(Image: PA) Nevertheless, unlike opinion polling, these are real votes in a real election and as such give an indication of the relative state of play of the various parties. There does seem to be some evidence for the view that in real votes, Reform UK is performing rather better than it does in opinion polling, a picture which was confirmed in the recent local and mayoral elections in England.
The SNP's vote is holding up well, in line with opinion polling which suggests we are on track in May 2026 for another SNP victory and most likely a pro-independence majority of MSPs once the Scottish Greens are taken into account.
The handful of opinion polls which have shown Alba as being likely to win some seats in next year's Holyrood election are not backed up by this by-election, in which Alba managed a paltry 51 first-preference votes, leaving them in second last place ahead only the socially conservative anti-LBGT anti-abortion Scottish Family Party on 25.
No one expected Alba to win this by election, certainly not Alba themselves, but such a poor showing contributes to the impression that Alba's hopes of becoming a significant and electorally successful independence party died along with its founder.
Where are ye Davy?
It seems that Anas Sarwar is not the only Labour politician in Scotland who hides from public scrutiny. Davy Russell, Labour's candidate in the Holyrood by-election in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse Scottish Parliament seat, called following the death from cancer of the sitting MSP Christina McKelvie. Russell failed to show up for a hustings in the constituency this week.
The event was held in a Hamilton church and hosted by the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, where members quizzed candidates about their views on nuclear power and weapons.
The SNP candidate Katy Loudon, said Russell had also failed to respond to her request for a TV debate in the run-up to the vote on June 5.
Speaking in a video posted to Twitter just after the hustings at which Russell was a no-show, Loudon said: 'I've just been to a fantastic local hustings at St John's Church tonight.
'I've already challenged Davy Russell, the Labour candidate, to a TV debate and I haven't had any reply. He's not here either this evening.
'Where are ye Davy?'
She added: 'Voters deserve to hear their Labour candidate defend his party's record. So where is he?'
Collette Bradley, the Scottish Socialist Party candidate in the by-election, accused Russell of 'running scared of the public'.
She said: 'I wasn't the only one angry at the Labour candidate's refusal to turn up for this public debate, which SCND took the time and trouble to organise, advertise and apparently invite him to, not once, but repeatedly.
'What has he got to hide – apart from Labour's devotion to nuclear weapons of mass destruction that squander £205 billion while one-in-four kids in Scotland start life in poverty?
'Or their continued arms sales to Israel so the Netanyahu regime can slaughter innocent Palestinians in a hospital? Or Labour's cuts to the incomes of pensioners, children, workers, sick and disabled people, local services like school buses?
"Come to think of it, no wonder he went into hiding, in case the public asked him questions about Labour's betrayal of every principle its founders stood for."
If Labour were on track to win the next Holyrood election, this is a by-election they would expect to win. The failure of their candidate to engage in the campaign process suggests that the Labour Party have privately already thrown in the towel.
Just a year ago Labour looked as though they were going to coast to victory at the next Scottish elections, 10 months of a Labour government of Keir Starmer has dramatically changed Labour's fortunes in Scotland.
With one unpopular far-right pandering decision after another, the Labour Party have comprehensively betrayed those who voted for it in last summer's Westminster General Election in the hope of change from the corporate cruelty of the Conservatives. Labour now look set to go down to a historic defeat, their only grain of solace coming from the fact that the Tories appear likely to be facing a near extinction level event as they are replaced as the nasty party by a party which is even nastier.
This piece is an extract from today's REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.
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