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New Statesman
3 days ago
- Politics
- New Statesman
The populist right are infiltrating Scotland
Hamilton may – just possibly, just perhaps – shock Scotland again next Thursday, when yet another by-election takes place there. This time it is for the Holyrood Parliament, which didn't exist back in 1967, and the constituency is formally Hamilton, Stonehouse and Larkhall. This time the SNP is the incumbent. And it is not Labour that could snatch the seat away, but Reform. A year ago, the very idea would have been unthinkable, the proposition instantly dismissed. Reform was an English phenomenon – a very English phenomenon – and the party was barely making a dent in the debate north of the border. To adapt Ayn Rand: 'What do you think of us?' 'We don't think of you.' Well, Scotland's thinking about Reform now. The party is rising in the polls, perhaps not to Westminster levels, but to a significant degree – one recent survey suggested it could even form the next opposition at Holyrood. Richard Tice has visited Hamilton, and Nigel Farage is expected to do so before the vote. In the past both would have risked being chased out. No longer. Ordinary Scots are as fed up with their lot as their counterparts across England, Europe and the US. An enduring cost of living crisis, underperforming public services, government cuts to welfare – there are lots of reasons that people are now willing to hit the panic button. And Hamilton is a bellwether ahead of next May's devolved election. In an article for yesterday's Daily Record, First Minister John Swinney described Thursday's vote as 'a straight contest between the SNP and Nigel Farage's Reform UK'. Farage was 'a clear and present danger to our country and must be stopped', and Labour's campaign was 'in collapse'. Labour supporters who value liberal, progressive politics should therefore vote SNP to freeze Reform out, he argued. There's a neat symmetry to this request. When Scottish Labour was flying high ahead of last year's general election, Anas Sarwar asked SNP supporters to lend him their votes in order to remove the Conservatives from power at Westminster. Plenty did so. Until recently, he was making the same request to secure a change of regime in Edinburgh. But Labour's prospects now appear grim. The mis-steps of Keir Starmer's administration have seen many Scots lose faith in the party, and its polling numbers have slumped precipitously. Less than a year from a national election, Hamilton, Stonehouse and Larkhall is exactly the kind of seat an incoming government should be winning, but it's hard to find anyone, commentator or pollster, who thinks Labour has much of a chance. Coming third would be a humiliation, and would surely mean there is no way back. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Of course, it suits Swinney to talk this way. Sarwar remains the only real threat to his continuing as first minister, and a narrative of Labour as declining also-rans fits the SNP's strategy perfectly. The Nats aren't losing many voters to Reform, so suggesting it's a straight shoot-out may push more staunch unionists into the Farage camp, further undermining Sarwar's position. Suppressing Labour at Reform's expense is not without consequence, though. Scotland has never experienced the kind of divisive racial politics that have played out in England. Reform has introduced them in Hamilton, with Farage falsely accusing Sarwar of saying 'he will prioritise the Pakistani community' and questioning whether he shares British 'values'. A tactic adopted by Reform in England will now be tested afresh in Scotland. Depressingly, this is likely to be just the first deployment of such racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric. How will the voters of Hamilton, and wider Scotland, react? Those drawn to Farage do seem to support the positions he has taken on immigration, the woke agenda and net zero. Scottish voters are not exceptional or especially progressive, whatever their mainstream politicians tell them. It's also true that we don't know exactly what is going on in Hamilton. There has been no constituency polling, and so most of what has come out is anecdotal – voters furious with the Labour government over its cuts to the winter fuel allowance and to health and disability benefits, disillusioned with the 18-years-long SNP administration, contemptuous towards what are seen as the distant elites at Westminster and Holyrood. Farage's recent pivot to the left – promising to restore winter fuel payments and end the two-child benefit cap – could prove persuasive to switherers, however wonky the financial calculations behind his pledges. The pollsters I've spoken to think it likely the SNP will hold on to the seat, simply because its vote is bearing up and because it is Labour that is losing people to Reform. But even they are uncertain, given the speed and sharp trajectory of Reform's rise in Scotland. They are unclear how the race-baiting tactic will play. Turnout and the strength of each party's ground operation will matter. Whatever happens on Thursday, there is more to follow. Rachel Reeves' expected cuts and tax rises, coupled with their impact on the Scottish Government's spending capacity, which is already hugely stretched, will have consequences. There is little to suggest disillusionment with the mainstream will cool any time soon. And here comes the Holyrood election. In a sense, Scotland is providing a perfectly timed storm for Reform, and Nigel Farage, to sail into. Gulp. [See also: How Scotland learned to love Nigel Farage] Related
The National
04-05-2025
- Politics
- The National
Scotland needs control of immigration – but the UK refuses to let go
The latest politico to take up that mantle was SNP MP Stephen Gethins who recently introduced a brief bill which would have devolved migration. He acknowledged throughout his opening speech that it would need essential amending from many quarters at the third reading. A reading it will never now get thanks to the whole shebang being talked out by a raft of MPs who get a nosebleed should they travel too far north of Watford. Even Michael Gove admitted the need to involve Scotland at the sharp end of any migration legislation. Then again, he's the kind of guy – about to be a Lord – who makes you want to look out the window and check if he says it's raining. READ MORE: John Swinney urges UK's biggest news agency to reconsider Scottish job cuts However, he was quoted by Gethins as saying: 'The numbers who would come in the future would be decided by the Westminster Parliament and the Holyrood Parliament working together.' Sure, Michael, sure. Most of the English MPs throughout the exchanges seemed to be fretting that if we gave out Scottish visas, the recipients would scarper elsewhere asap. Maybe they should have read up on the existing safeguards. Always tricky moving the lips before the brain is safely engaged. For starters, getting a work visa means the taxman knows not just where you bide, but who your employer is. Take up a job not on the paperwork and among the things instantly lost is that precious right to work. While the UK Government obsesses over small boat numbers they ignore arrival patterns. It's what happens when you spend too much time in the arms of the Daily Mail! Our history, sadly, is of outward migration, whereas both England and Wales have always had more people coming in. It's only since the beginning of this century we have enjoyed welcoming new citizens, but not in the numbers we need to address the fact that every year more people die than are born. And not in the age group which produces more Scots. As our own government noted: 'Migration is only one strand in the approach to addressing Scotland's demographic challenge, but it is a crucial one. Scotland's history of out-migration and population decline has left a structural legacy. (Image: PA) 'Communities, especially rural communities, did not just lose those individuals who left Scotland but also the potential future generations of their children and grandchildren. This legacy means that Scotland has long been more reliant on migration than many other areas of the United Kingdom.' As our Tourism Alliance notes: 'Introducing a Scottish specific visa scheme not only would match immigration to the demand for certain skills' – as it has done for centuries – 'but also encourage more people coming to live and work in Scotland, particularly in rural and island communities that are experiencing a drain in people of working age and families.' Try telling any of that to the bean counters, however, both in the UK Government and the increasingly shrill right-wing media. The unpalatable fact is that our working-age population will fall by almost 15% over the next 50 years whilst the UK as a whole will have a modest increase. Brutally, we need more young families, more working taxpayers, more innovating entrepreneurs, and a smaller percentage in 'god's waiting room.' You will not need me to remind you that the latter cohorts are also the most stubborn Unionists. Plus, historically, migrants to Scotland have contributed way more than they cost the public services. Perhaps you recall the Fresh Talent Initiative where graduate students could live and work in Scotland for a couple of years after getting their degree. It ran for three years till 2008 and was such a runaway success that Westminster nicked it. Now the Scottish Government proposes a Scottish graduate visa, linked to a Scottish tax code to ensure that the recipient continues to live and work here. They want to price it at a realistic level too, given that few shiny new graduates walk into very high-paying employment. Conversely, everything the Tory government did from the loopy Rwanda scheme to halting family and spouse visas has impacted in all the wrong ways. Last November the Home Office noted (with pride, mind you) that compared with the same period in 2023 there had been a startling 84% drop in visas issued to health and care workers. You will probably have clocked that these are two sectors that are desperately and usually vainly trying to recruit already trained staff and who, certainly in care work, attract dismal wages for vital work. Similarly, it has become much more difficult to hire foreign skilled workers because a) they now might have to leave spouse and family behind and b) at the moment they require an unlikely salary level. As a result of all of these unnatural barriers, the EU-UK traffic has ground to a halt, with EU residents, understandably, feeling something less than valued. All of these anti-migrant initiatives have impacted the rural economy, particularly in Scotland, on our seasonal industries, and on our higher education sector which is on its financial knees all over the country. The gap caused by giving our own weans free tuition was offset to an extent by a lucrative seam of foreign students. Since migration has become an all-purpose dirty word in some political circles, other countries like India, Australia and the USA have not been slow to take up the slack. Another oddity of the migration debate is folks who have never encountered a migrant in their puff, pronouncing that the immigration numbers are way too high. I get that if you're living somewhere bordering the English Channel and are fearful of added pressure on public services, but the same paranoia seems to infect people never likely to be affected. It is fervently to be hoped that with Reform breathing down the back of so many necks, the issue does not become – in the current jargon – 'weaponised' in the run-up to our own election. If we've learned anything in the last few years, it's that Farage and Co are the very last people who should be left in charge of migration policy, or allowed to have undue influence on those who are. So, bottom line, we are growing the pensioner population but not the working-age one, new Scots liable to have and raise their kids here. We have income barriers which are higher than any of our young graduates are likely to attain from the off. Furthermore, the Gethins bill, strangled at birth, was only trying to follow a path already trodden in other countries like Canada, our new bestie, Australia and several more. They too recognise the need to resist a 'one-size-fits-all solution'. The UK system, as currently used, is bureaucratic, unwieldy, and too tightly focused on income levels rather than the skills variety. The USA for instance has just introduced a gold card route which lets more millionaires and billionaires avoid the tedious business of actually applying for entry to Trumpland. They have also let loose a goon squad of folk whose job it is to hoover up legitimate incomers who may have committed the unpardonable sin of getting the 'wrong' kind of tattoo. The UK Home Secretary, for now at least, only has plans to outsource some asylum claimants to the Balkans. If you feel a wee shiver travelling up your spine, you are not alone.
