Reform UK: A gap in the market?

As the clock struck ten o’clock on the night of the general election, many were shocked by the exit poll. Suggestions Labour would win 410 seats stole the headlines. However, further down another big story was bubbling. 

The exit poll suggested that Reform UK, a party that until the general election had had very little electoral success, would return 13 seats. The estimate was ultimately overblown – the party led by Nigel Farage only returned five seats. 

However, those five seats represent the groundswell of support the party experienced during its short campaign in the lead up to the election. It received four million votes, roughly 14 per cent of the vote share, making it the third most voted-for party. 

Reform occupies just one per cent of the seats at Westminster. For comparison, the Liberal Democrats received 12 per cent of the vote share but returned 11 per cent of the overall seats. 

Deputy leader Richard Tice described this as an “injustice” the following day and called for the first-past-the-post voting system to be reformed.  

“That is blatantly not a properly functioning democratic system – it is a flawed system. The demands for change will grow and grow,” he told the media.

It is a sentiment shared by the co-leader of the Greens, Adrian Ramsay, whose party also holds just one per cent of seats despite winning seven per cent of the vote [that calculation includes the Scottish Greens and Green Party Northern Ireland, though they are registered as a separate party from the Green Party of England and Wales]. 

The Scottish Parliament elections present an opportunity for Reform.

Having gained seven per cent of the vote share north of the border at the general election, a similar return through the regional list in 2026 would almost guarantee seats.  

The party’s deputy leader has already confirmed it will run in every seat and the regional list “will have a full slate of candidates”, and Reform is aiming to better the Scottish Conservatives’ vote share when Scots go to the polls in less than two years. Tice told The Daily Telegraph last month: “Everyone was caught a bit short [by the July election] but we got seven per cent with a very limited Scottish campaign.” 

He added: “It’s completely realistic to think that we’ll get more votes cast than they [the Scottish Conservatives] do. I mean, the party is riven asunder. They have no idea what they stand for. Some of them are to the left of Starmer, some of them are Lib Dems. 

“The whole Conservative Party brand is toxic, that’s the point. Whereas our brand is actually gaining momentum, and I think we’re going to surprise everybody.” 

The Scottish Conservatives are aware and worried of the threat in 2026. A party source told Holyrood that they were shocked that Reform came from nowhere in Scotland, with little profile, with no visits by Farage, and with no real campaign, to rival them.

And a new poll suggests Tice’s assertion has a chance of coming to fruition. Survation found that the Conservatives would win just 11 per cent of votes on the regional list, while Reform would win eight per cent. 

For now the Tories are still favoured by the electorate but the polls suggest that support is decreasing, while it is increasing for Reform. 

Speaking to STV News last week, Farage says in the lead up to the election “Scotland will be seeing me”.

He said: “The economic implications of the collapse of the North Sea industry, not just for Aberdeen, but for large parts of Scotland are huge.  

“And I think we are the only pragmatists. We’re saying, look, we will be using oil and gas in 2050. And that, I think, is the basis upon which we’re beginning to build support in Scotland.

“I also think nobody knows what the Scottish Conservatives are or what they stand for.” 

Another voting intention poll carried out by Norstat between 20-22 August also shows that support for Reform has grown, suggesting it would win nine per cent of the regional list vote and projecting that the party is on course to send nine MSPs to Holyrood.  

Richard Fairley is one such voter making the switch. A former member of the Conservatives, the 30-year-old farmer changed his allegiance to Reform 18 months ago. He has since become heavily involved with the party after he became disenfranchised with the Tories’ plans for net zero. He has grave concerns about how that will impact his industry, agriculture.  

“I voted for Boris [Johnson] in 2019, but it didn’t take very long for me to not be happy with him,” he says.

He speaks to Holyrood as he takes a break from harvesting, sitting in a large yellow combine harvester looking out over his crops. It’s a sunny, dry day, which he says, worryingly, there have been too few of this summer.  

Fairley stood as a candidate for Reform UK in the general election for the Alloa and Grangemouth constituency and he says he was able to spend a lot of time out speaking to constituents in June, accompanied by his wife and dog, because the month was so wet. 

He received 9.2 per cent of the vote and was the third-best-performing Reform candidate in Scotland. 

But it’s not just former Conservatives like Fairley who are changing allegiance to Reform. The Norstat poll suggests that the constituency vote share in 2026 for the SNP, Labour and the Tories could fall by a few points each, while the Lib Dems and the Scottish Greens will see no change. That suggests Reform will take voters from all three largest parties at Holyrood. 

Dr Mark Shephard, a senior lecturer in politics at the University of Strathclyde, says it is “quite possible” Reform will win seats in 2026, but adds that its success will depend on events and issues like the state of the economy, the NHS, immigration and “possible ballot deals with other parties”. 

“As an untried populist party, what might also help Reform at the next Scottish Parliament election is wider political levels of disgruntlement with unpopular and/or austerity policies of recent parties in power at Scottish and UK levels of government,” Shephard says.     

Dr Neil McGarvey, a senior teaching fellow of politics at the University of Strathclyde, agrees there are “a lot of external factors” that will provide smaller parties “with more opportunity” at the next Scottish Parliament election. 

“The next two years of the Labour UK Government doesn’t look as if it is going to be particularly rosy, given the agenda of austerity that is being talked about. And historically the governing parties have done very poorly in mid-term elections. To add to that, you have the SNP that has not been polling well.” 

Asked about the 38 per cent of Scots who voted for Brexit and whether they may find a home with Reform, McGarvey thinks it will appeal to some of them. “There are groups of voters in each of the parties that Reform can appeal to – it is very difficult to make a judgement on what a party’s base is before they have even got one – but if you look at opinion polls they suggest that Scots are not as dissimilar from those south of the border, which is sometimes otherwise assumed.    

“There is a small-c conservativism in Scotland that is evident. But the difference here is the political elite. During the Brexit campaign about 90 per cent of the parliamentarians were united behind Remain, whereas south of the border the proportion of people in favour of Leave was far greater, as was their visibility. 

“Reform’s political strategists know there is clear evidence of potential.” 

The general election result also offered another interesting insight. The party struck a chord with young men, as 12 per cent aged 18-24 voted for Reform, while roughly the same amount voted for Green parties, according to YouGov. 

Fairley suggests this is the case because Reform “are talking about the issues they care about”. And in the lead-up to the general election, polls often suggested voters aged 18-24’s main concern was the cost of living, followed by health and the state of the economy.  

“We are appealing to younger voters because we are talking about the issues they are concerned about. People’s biggest worries are heating their homes, paying their rent, and feeding their family,” Fairley says.  

“I am trying my best to help a foodbank in Stenhousemuir, and the type of people that are using that foodbank are people who work and are on pensions. These people can’t feed themselves during the last four or five days of the month, despite them working or being on a pension. I think it is absolutely horrendous that we have got to a stage where we can’t look after our own people.” 

McGarvey says the “lack of hope” offered by other parties could be one of the reasons for the surprisingly high youth vote.  

“You must look at this in the context of the state of the economy, and perhaps the sense of hopelessness. None of the mainstream parties are offering much hope for the future.” 

He adds that on an anecdotal level he was “shocked” by the level of “young well-educated people” in pubs from relatively affluent suburban areas who said they were voting for Reform. 

The morning after the general election, Farage addressed party members and the media. He said the party would rid itself of “bad apples”. This was likely in reference in part to an undercover Channel 4 report which documented racist remarks made by some canvassers during the campaign in Farage’s seat in Clacton. 

He also pledged to “professionalise” the party. Fairley agrees this must happen.   

“The election was called earlier than anyone imagined, and that definitely put us on the back foot. There were two or three that had slipped through vetting. I don’t know how they did because it took months for me to go through. I think there was too much to do too soon.  

“I know that really annoyed Nigel because the media got the wrong idea of what we are, and those two or three idiots helped prove their point. That annoyed a lot of us. 

“I go to meetings once a month and the people, especially the ones I meet with in Perthshire and Glasgow, are all decent folk that want to improve the country.” 

Another criticism of Reform during the election was that the party had selected a large volume of paper candidates. Fairley was accused by some media outlets of being one, despite being born and raised in the area. He claims he was one of only two candidates who was still living locally in the area. However, he accepts that there were some paper candidates during the general election, and he puts that down to standing a candidate in every seat with little time to prepare. 

It will be the party’s “biggest struggle” at the Scottish Parliament election to ensure there are no paper candidates, he says, but adds it will be “very important” to have local candidates stand in every seat.  

There are obvious questions about what Reform’s role would be at Holyrood. McGarvey suggests it will look to “disrupt” the consensus around certain issues in the chamber and the committees. 

Net zero commitments are one of the consensus issues Reform opposes, and it is something Fairley believes is negatively impacting industries like agriculture. He intends to run again in his local area in 2026. He sends a warning to the mainstream parties.  

“A lot of people in this area voted for Labour to get rid of the SNP. They thought Reform was a bit of a protest vote, but when we get five or six MSPs in the Scottish Parliament, I think by the next general election we’ll no longer be seen as a protest vote.”