The 2026 Scottish Parliament election represented a moment of considerable change for the Scottish political landscape. The winner of the 7th of May contest was seen as a foregone conclusion long before polling day, despite the delusions of some in the Labour camp and their press outriders, and the SNP was returned to office with a slightly reduced parliamentary block of 58 seats that nonetheless allowed them to maintain their 19-year grip on power. Yet despite this continuity at the top, much has changed in Holyrood since ballots were cast earlier this year.
Through a combination of electoral defeat and political retirements, only 65 of the elected 129 MSPs returned to Holyrood had been members during the previous parliamentary session, and, with the replacement of Douglas Lumsden by Tory North East newbie James Adams following the Aberdeen South by-election, a majority of the chamber are now new to their roles. This changing of the guard saw the departure of some notable (or, perhaps more accurately, infamous) figures, such as former First Ministers Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf, as well as several longstanding MSPs from across the established parties.
However, the most notable change following the 2026 Scottish Parliament election has undoubtedly been the arrival of Reform as a major force in Scotland’s devolved legislature. In 2021, the party secured just 5,793 (0.21%) votes in the regional lists, and did not even stand candidates in individual constituencies. Yet in 2026, the party came second in the regional lists with 383,425 (16.6%) votes, and won 361,994 (15.8%) constituency votes, third behind the SNP and Labour. The outcome of this was Reform winning 17 seats (all from the regional lists), making them the joint second-largest party alongside Labour and marking the arrival of a new right-of-centre impetus in Holyrood.
Reform’s arrival on the Scottish political landscape
It was long considered by many that Scotland was somehow uniquely immune to the appeal of populism that has grown in the rest of Britain, Europe and indeed the Western World over the past two decades. Of course, for anyone with the intellect and political understanding beyond that of an A-level politics student or Guardian columnist, it is very obvious that Scotland was in fact the first part of Britain to reject the two-party Tory-Labour duopoly and plump for populist nationalism, with anti-Westminster anger sweeping the SNP to power in 2007 and keeping them there ever since. Regardless, the Scottish and Westminster commentariats’ narrative that Scotland was immune to populism held firm in the wake of the heavy Remain vote north of the border in 2016.
There were already glimpses of success for Reform’s Farage-led predecessor parties pointing towards a path to political relevance in Scotland. The bizarre David Cockburn, UKIP Scotland’s leader from 2014 to 2018, was elected as an MEP in the 2014 European elections having polled a notable 10.4% of the vote, and were it not for leadership and organisational failings the party may well have had MSPs elected in the 2016 Scottish Parliamentary elections (alas, their vote share ultimately slumped to 2%). Again, European elections proved fruitful for the Brexit Party, with the equally peculiar Louis Stedman-Bryce taking one of Scotland’s six MEP spots as the party received 233,006 votes or 14.8%, coming second in conditions of then-unprecedented Tory-Labour unpopularity. However, these electoral successes were confined to European elections, and any momentum was fatally undermined on both occasions by the fundamental unsuitability of both Cockburn and Stedman-Bryce to public life and the lack of any meaningful party organisation in Scotland.
With Nigel Farage on hiatus from front-line politics, Reform was founded in Scotland in early 2021 as a largely anti-lockdown party by a small group of people, most notably including current Reform Scotland director and key decision-maker Martyn Greene. The party was initially joined by former Tory MSP Michelle Ballantyne, giving the party its first taste of Holyrood representation for the remaining months leading up to the 2021 Scottish Parliament election. After their disappointing results in the 2021 election, the party appeared to lose salience, deciding not to stand in the 2022 local elections, and Ballantyne was last seen joining one of many fringe right-wing parties earlier this year, leaving Reform.
Like Reform nationally, the 2024 General Election showed the first stirrings of what was to come. Reform received 7.0% of the vote in Scotland, far exceeding UKIP’s General Election peak in Scotland of 1.5% in 2015 and showing there was political hay to be made beyond European elections. The party continued to pick up pace with council by-election results as 2024 progressed, notably winning 18.9% of the vote in a West Lothian count in August 2024, and many other results showing growing support for the party across Scotland.
If 2024 was the year first signalling change brewing in Scotland, 2025 was the breakout year for the party north of the border. The year began with then Tory Glasgow City councillor Thomas Kerr joining the party in January 2025, providing the party with a media-adept figurehead to build the party’s profile and ensure a trickle of defections from councillors elsewhere over the course of the year. Kerr has since gone on to be a key figure for the party as Deputy Leader and focal point for much of its parliamentary and media operations.
The moment that truly marked Reform’s arrival as a national political force in Scotland was the June 2025 Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse Scottish Parliament by-election following the death of incumbent MSP Christine McKelvie. In a by-election largely framed around the party’s rise, Reform candidate Ross Lambie won 26.1% of the vote, coming only 1500 votes from winning the seat.
This result showed that there was now a clear and substantial bloc of support for Reform in Scotland, and crucially that it wasn’t necessarily coming entirely from ex-Tory voters, with the Tory 2016 peak vote in the seat of 19.4%. As the Tory Party still won 6.0% of the vote in 2025, it was a clear sign of willingness among disgruntled former Labour and SNP voters to lend their support to the party. Notably, the by-election campaign also presaged the tactics that the Scottish political establishment would adopt towards the insurgent party nationally. On the back of a Reform advert quoting then Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar’s words regarding Pakistani representation in British politics, the party was attacked from across the Scottish political establishment in a display of unity which had the early makings of a cordon sanitaire in Scottish politics.
Alongside the defection of sitting Tory MSP Graham Simpson to the party in August 2025, these events helped give Reform a significant polling bounce in Scotland which coincided with a positive national picture for the party. Pulling into a clear second place in Holyrood polling from September, this growth in support was illustrated by the party topping the poll in the November Stranraer & the Rhins council by-election, eventually being pipped by the Tories through vote transfers under the STV system used, before outright winning the December Whitburn & 4Blackburn council by-election that provided the party its first electoral victory in Scotland.
With Reform seemingly now a force in Scottish politics, a serious question remained: who would be leading the party into the Holyrood elections in May 2026? Figures such as Thomas Kerr and Graham Simpson had acted as party figureheads for media and campaigning events, but it was clear an official leader would need to be put in place, particularly with ongoing uncertainty around the candidate selection process. Following discussions with the party and a soft launch with a handful of prospective candidates, former junior Tory junior minister Malcolm Offord, then a member of the House of Lords, was officially announced as the newest defector to the party alongside Nigel Farage at a party rally in Falkirk in early December, with confirmation of his intention to resign his Lords seat to take up the party leadership coming the next month.
The party formally launched its election campaign and confirmed candidates on the 19th of March; the campaign immediately came under scrutiny with criticism of a past joke made by Offord before he entered politics. Changes to the candidate lists and furore over a joke made years earlier by Offord provided some early turbulence, but, after these initial challenges, the campaign proved reasonably uneventful. Reform Scotland’s skeleton crew of full-time employees managed the campaign well, avoiding any significant missteps and delivering the party’s pitch effectively. The most notable moments included Offord’s unshy acknowledgement of his ‘six houses, six boats, and five cars’ in an attempt to argue for Scottish entrepreneurship and a running ding-dong between him and then Labour leader Anas Sarwar over the latter’s attempts to court Reform support as a tactical vote to oust the SNP.
As previously detailed, Reform won 17 MSPs — all elected through regional lists, with at least one member from every region and as many as three in their Southern & Central strongholds — tying them as the second largest party in Holyrood. Breakthrough as that was, the result was perhaps at the lower end of expectations for the party, as it missed out by a whisker in several individual constituencies. The SNP held onto its once-stronghold of Banffshire & Buchan Coast by just 264 votes, and Reform came within a handful of regional votes away from winning additional seats in Edinburgh & Lothians East and North East Scotland. Had the election been held eight months earlier, when the party’s support in Scotland was at a local maximum, they may have secured 20 or more MSPs.
Nevertheless, the result still marked a historic result for the non-Tory right in Scotland, and any underachievement was likely a reflection of tactical unionist voting in favourable areas for the Tory party such as South Scotland and the North East rather than anything to do with Reform itself. That is even more the case given the limitations of Reform’s ground game, necessarily weaker than other parties given its smaller membership north of the border — a disadvantage which is ebbing as the party grows and matures.
The current state of play in Holyrood
Since the 7th of May Holyrood election, Reform has moved quickly to put together a central media and research team alongside teams for individual MSPs. This hiring process has been consciously expedited in an attempt to minimise the period of Reform’s disadvantage, given that all other parties already possess these functionalities. Contrary to the assumptions of some, the vast majority of those hired have not come from a Tory background, despite the glut of redundant staff with the Tory party having been reduced from an opposition party of 31 seats to a rump of just 12.
The central decision-making nexus of the party in Scotland has taken shape around the aforementioned Offord, Kerr and Greene alongside Offord’s former SpAd and Highlands and Islands MSP Max Bannerman (cousin of former UKIP Deputy Leader David Campbell Bannerman and a distant relation of former Liberal Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman), who has overseen the successful launch of the party’s parliamentary operation as well as holding crucial input into party strategy and policy. While Offord, Kerr and Bannerman come from a Scottish Tory background, the party has a distinct direction and identity from their former party, and there is little love lost between the three and many of the few remaining Tories in Holyrood. The party also retains a strong core of early Reform ‘long marchers’, with Greene alongside MSPs David Kirkwood and Mark Simpson having been heavily involved with the party since its early days.
As regards specific policy areas, a broad remit is being given to MSPs within their own portfolios, in a process expected to intensify in the coming months to produce detailed policy output across the full spectrum of issues. Broadly speaking, the party is emphasising the value of markets and enterprise (a topic Offord passionately leads on), as well as being vocal on social policy and, as could readily be assumed, ardently Unionist and Eurosceptic. The latter two of these three tendencies have been almost entirely absent from Scottish political discourse in recent decades, abandoned by the conspicuously liberal Scottish Tories and driven out of the SNP to the extent they were ever present.
The presence of unapologetic opposition to left-wing social politics and immigration policy has unsurprisingly rubbed the left-of-centre Holyrood political establishment up the wrong way. Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton went as far as to make a very original comparison to the ‘Third Reich’. In typical Lib Dem fashion, he went on to apologise if he had offended those he had likened to one of history’s most reviled regimes. Particular flashpoints have come after disturbances in Glasgow following the attempted beheading on the streets of Belfast by a Sudanese asylum seeker, with various political figures shamelessly accusing Reform of being vicariously liable for the ructions.
Indeed, there has been in part a broad effort to create a quasi-cordon sanitaire around the party in Holyrood. This came most notably with John Swinney’s post-election protestations against the insurgent party, vowing to ‘lock out’ the party from governance. This step was followed by various other parliamentary manoeuvres as all other parties from the Scottish Greens to the Tories sought to make life as difficult as possible for Reform. These gestures have largely backfired, and Reform has taken important committee convenorships for the Economy and Health; other parties now struggle to maintain a coherent and workable collective political strategy against the party.
Beyond the arrival of Reform en masse, the Scottish Parliament largely remains as Ed West recently described it: ‘The Wuhan lab of British Politics’. The comfortable re-election of an SNP minority government has done little to strengthen the position of long-time party apparatchik and current First Minister John Swinney, who is currently bogged down by the ongoing Peter Murrell embezzlement scandal which could eventually bring him down, particularly as further questions are raised around the finances of the pro-independence Yes Scotland group with which Murrell was also involved.
Further to the detriment of the First Minister has been the decamping of the able former SNP Westminster group leader Stephen Flynn to Holyrood, assuming the economy brief for the government. The likely power struggle for the leadership between Flynn and education secretary Màiri McAllan (of the Sturgeonite wing) will have significant consequences for the future of Scottish politics. Particular fault lines will be around oil and gas, with SNP figures in the North East like Flynn keen on better supporting the industry, and the much-discussed but still detail-scant ‘Public Service Reform’ led by former Kate Forbes supporter Ivan McKee, which is tasked with slashing billions of pounds from Scottish Government expenditure.
The much-reduced Tory rump party has, unsurprisingly, taken its May Holyrood drubbing acrimoniously and has put most of its parliamentary efforts into channelling it against the new Reform cohort, mirroring much of their election tactics in an attempt to discredit Reform and particularly their commitment to the Union. The party did go into the summer recess with some spring in its step following the aforementioned Aberdeen South Westminster by-election victory, possibly meaning that West Scotland MSP Russell Findlay will hang on as the party leader north of the border. The main successor touted to replace Findlay if a vacancy were to emerge is Dumfriesshire MSP Craig Hoy, which would be a particular gift for Reform’s prospects in Scotland, although perennial candidate Murdo Fraser would likely also put his hat into the ring of any contest, potentially amongst others.
The Scottish Labour Party, on the back of losing seats at a seventh consecutive Scottish Parliamentary election, finds itself in a particularly moribund mood. Devoid of ideas and purpose, differing little from the SNP establishment on much bar the constitution, the party finds itself at an existential crossroads with no easy options for electoral salvation. Anas Sarwar has unsurprisingly left the role of party leader, with Andy Burnham offering the Glasgow MSP a peerage for his double act of electoral failure. The ballot in the contest to replace him opens this Friday (28th August), and the result will be announced on the 19th September. There are ostensibly differences between the two candidates (Michael Marra and Joe Fagan) — I have thus far been unable to identify them.
Both represent a ‘soft-left’ and vaguely Burnhamite turn that will likely produce similar results for the party in Scotland as it has in the rest of the country, which is to say very little. They remain better choices than the available alternatives (from Labour’s perspective at least). The prospect of Edinburgh liberal Daniel Johnson pontificating across the Holyrood debating chamber for the next five years would have surely been a great boon for Reform’s prospects in working-class Scotland, and Paul Sweeney’s softening position on the constitution may have moved a significant bloc of Unionist voters away from the party. The other possible candidate in this contest was Sarwar’s successor on the Glasgow regional list, former MSP and 2021 leadership candidate Monica Lennon, whose uninspiring candidacy fizzled out as she failed to secure the required nominations.
The Lib Dems will continue to fulfil their role, as they now do across Britain, of providing Potemkin opposition in theory whilst supporting every act of the government in practice. Having picked up a solid election showing with the party going from four to ten seats, including a number of impressive constituency victories, their role in parliament may gain more significance if the SNP approaches them instead of the Scottish Greens for budget support for the minority nationalist government.
The most extreme gain-of-function experiments in the Scottish Parliament are, however, carried out by the Scottish Green Party, a truly risible organisation. To the detriment of Scottish political discourse and the quality of our public life in general, the Greens have enjoyed representation in Holyrood ever since the first devolved elections in 1999, with their influence having steadily grown since, culminating in the infamous Bute House power sharing agreement of 2021-2024 between them and the SNP which saw Green co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater placed in ministerial positions for the first time.
Despite the sheer incompetence of Harvie and particularly Slater (readers would be wise to read about the disastrous and thankfully aborted Deposit Return Scheme) and the collapse of the agreement, the 2026 elections saw the Greens make significant advances. To the Greens’ credit, their strategy of focusing on maximising the regional list vote (standing only in six of 73 constituencies, two of which they won) did succeed, allowing the party to receive support from dissatisfied SNP voters without provoking fears of vote-splitting and handing them 15 seats in Holyrood, up from seven at the previous election. This makes the far-left group larger than both the Tory Party and the Lib Dems.
While the list of wacky policies advocated by this group of 15 is too extensive for this article, there are some moments to highlight. New Edinburgh & Lothians East regional MSP Kate Nevens drew significant attention during the campaign for advocating the abolition of Scotland’s prison system in comments which were not fully repudiated by the party. Nevens’ fellow Edinburgh & Lothians East representative Q Manivannan, a ‘nonbinary’ Indian national who had been studying for a doctorate in international relations at St Andrews, has provoked particular controversy not just for the ridiculousness of his queer pretensions but also on account of his visa status. Being on a student visa, it is possible that he could be asked to leave Britain two years into his five-year term, leaving him to serve out the rest of his time in office remotely from his native Tamil Nadu. Of course, even outside of this challenge, it is outrageous that a non-citizen is allowed to serve in elected office. But the most egregious part of the equation is that his very presence in Scotland is only possible at the expense of the British taxpayer, with his doctoral research project ‘Archiving and (Re)imagining Caregiving as Peacebuilding in Third World Social Movements’ being funded by the ESRC.
Unfortunately, these positions championed by the Greens have also significantly influenced SNP thinking, with SNP flagship election policy focusing on price controls for foodstuffs, despite there being no clear legal power through which the Scottish Government might enact such measures. The SNP is also looking to effectively abolish prison sentences for crimes requiring a sentence of less than five years, building on a legacy of reduced sentences for younger people which has led to their exploitation for criminal enterprises. This comes on the back of a pervasive crackdown on free speech that has enabled the state to prosecute Scots for private conversations in their own home, a perennial fixation with rent controls, and a hatred of second homes rooted equally in socialist resentment and anti-English xenophobia — all issues on which the Greens and the SNP are in lockstep, and that’s before both parties’ bizarre obsessions with transgenderism are discussed.
It will be increasingly important for Reform going forward to highlight these overlaps as they seek to wrench more support from the SNP — particularly in the deindustrialised central belt between Edinburgh and central Glasgow, which offers an opportunity-rich demographic environment for Reform similar to that of England’s north and midlands, and is yet to fully manifest that potential.
The future for Reform in Scotland
The most interesting aspect of Reform’s support in the May Holyrood elections, and in their recent electoral successes at large, has been the support they have received outside of traditional Tory voting areas — particularly, but not limited to, the Central Belt — bucking perceptions that Reform voters in Scotland are simply disgruntled former Tory voters.
This was already evident from the party’s strong showing in the June 2025 Hamilton by-election and the council victory in Whitburn & Blackburn in December of that year, but was further highlighted by Reform’s success in pushing Labour into third place on the regional list vote in Central Scotland & Lothians West — their traditional heartland in the country. Reform secured three MSPs for the region, a figure they matched only in South Scotland (a traditional Tory area, yes — but one in which Reform’s strongest showings were in traditionally non-Tory seats such as Carrick, Cumnock & Doon Valley, Clydesdale, and the aforementioned Hamilton. Even as the party may be underperforming its potential to win over ex-Tory voters due to the effectiveness of the Tory tactical voting message, their success elsewhere raises important questions and opportunities regarding its future direction.
This appeal in working-class, non-Tory, unionist communities was further underlined by the party’s victory in the Larkhall council by-election on the 9th of July, winning over 35% of first preference votes and securing a not insignificant number of Labour and some Tory transfer votes, ensuring the party was able to survive the STV vote transfer process to win the contest. Focus on those Labour voters in working-class areas willing to give Reform their second-preference votes may show an avenue for further electoral expansion, especially as Labour’s stance on the union weakens. Likewise, any move of the Tory party to a more liberal leader could squeeze some residual Tory vote — although that looks immediately unlikely for now.
Reform has also enjoyed meaningful support from former SNP voters and independence supporters. According to YouGov, the party won 13% of 2014 Yes voters on the regional list, only 2% away from being the second most popular party with independence supporters, and was the second most popular party with the demographic in constituency voting (although this is largely due to the Greens taking themselves out of the running). While only 38% of Scots voted for Brexit in 2016, this is still a significant voting bloc and a number of these voters will have also voted Yes in 2014 — indeed, this universally anti-establishment (and often broadly speaking ‘right wing’) voter has often been ignored in analysis of Scottish politics, but is becoming important now as they begin to shift towards Reform. Much of this group will have also been pushed into the independence camp due to their frustration with the Tory-Labour duopoly and could be sympathetic to Reform’s message of fundamental change within Britain. Balancing former Tories who have come to support the party while pursuing these growth opportunities with former Labour and SNP voters will be incredibly important for the growth of the party in Scotland.
Crucial to the fate of Reform, and indeed all Unionist parties in Scotland, will be the relationship between the SNP and Greens. At present, the cosy relationship between the two has allowed the SNP to largely monopolise the pro-independence vote despite their own failings, with the Greens only standing in a handful of seats. In return, the Greens have been able to benefit from significant split-ticket voting that has been seen by some to ‘game’ the D’Hondt system, has given them significant representation, and has ensured a sizeable pro-independence majority in parliament despite the two parties receiving only a little over 40% of the total vote share. If the SNP were to push away from their Sturgeonite recent history and pursue meaningful cuts as part of much-discussed ‘public service reforms’ whilst moving to support the oil and gas industry, this may push the Greens to reconsider their détente with the nationalists and reignite conflict between the two parties.
The next SNP leadership election will go some way towards indicating the line the party will take on these crucial issues, whenever that does occur. Another area that held the Greens back from standing in constituencies across the country was the upfront cost of deposits for the party. While the Greens would almost certainly have returned the vast majority, if not all, of their deposits, this financial commitment would have seriously dented campaign finances. The Lib Dem victory in Edinburgh Northern was an excellent example of the opportunities for Unionists if the pro-independence vote can be split. Despite a pro-independence vote share of over 40%, the Lib Dems were able to win the seat with 34.6% of the vote. While the Lib Dems are more likely to benefit from tactical support than any other Unionist party, this seat almost certainly would have been an SNP win had the Greens not stood. Unionist parties looking to decouple the nationalist vote would be wise to consider how they could make it more appealing for the Greens to stand by reducing the cost of deposits for parties with existing representation — a point the SNP and Greens would be unlikely to significantly push back on (or indeed oppose at all).
Paramount to Reform’s future success and presence in Scotland will be the building of local party infrastructure, a process that is already well under way. The opportunity to vote for a Reform candidate in every council ward across Scotland in May 2027 will cement the arrival of a truly national party, and the necessity of canvassing up and down the country will provide important and detailed data. The likely slew of councillors will help develop and mature a candidate and activist bank for future Westminster and Holyrood elections.
It is of course important to remember that, like any major Unionist party, the fortunes of Reform at the 2031 Holyrood election will be heavily influenced by the fate of the party at Westminster. No more clearly was this seen than with Labour’s dismal showing in May despite having made significant advances and topped the poll in Scotland in the 2024 General Election, their first such accomplishment since 2010. But so too can Scotland exert an influence on the country as a whole.
Many readers will be sceptical of the importance of Scottish politics, and hostile to the idea of devolution itself. That is a hostility which I share. Yet, just as Holyrood has served as a breeding ground for new ideas and approaches on the left, so too can it provide a window for Reform nationally into the challenges of government, as well as an opportunity to develop talent which can later be used in Westminster. A number of Scottish Reform politicians are already distinguishing themselves in that regard. More than anything, the next general election will be extremely tight whatever the result, making every seat all the more valuable. Reform’s successes thus far show that it would be a mistake to give up on Scotland, regardless of the challenges it brings.
This article was written by Andrew Osnard, a Pimlico Journal contributor. Have a pitch? Send it to submissions@pimlicojournal.co.uk.
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