Transformation not Reform

What will it feel like on the weekend of the 9th and 10th of May when the results of this year’s Scottish Parliament elections become clear? How will Holyrood operate with the expected significant cohort of Reform UK MSPs? What will it mean for Scotland? 

At this point, perhaps it is possible to take some solace from the way that polling figures may be potentially inflated. And justified unhappiness may be directed at the regular media coverage for a party that has won, thus far, limited electoral support in Scotland. Yet what needs to be acknowledged is that Reform UK are a phenomenon, or more accurately, a symptom of a crisis. 

To quote Antonio Gramsci accurately: ‘The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear’ (This is the wording in the Lawrence and Wishart translation of the Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1971, p 276).

We therefore need to acknowledge the crisis as well as the multiple morbid symptoms that are emerging, whether that be the misappropriation of Saltires on our streets as symbols of exclusion, cost-of-living pressures coupled with deteriorating public services, and the ongoing degradation of political discourse and common standards of probity and decency by all-too-many political leaders.

The crisis: capitalism is not providing for people or planet. Over consumption and extraction are linked to 'growth'. Unhappiness and insecurity are ever-present aspects of our society. Politics and even - for some - democracy, are seen as failing. Inequality is very real. Work, for many, is unfulfilling. Services and infrastructure are under constant strain. 

On to this stage comes The Lord Malcolm Ian Offord of Garvel Commander of the Royal Victorian Order to front Reform’s gold-plated campaign for May's elections. It has been suggested Farage has picked Offord in an attempt to reach beyond the limits of the self-appointed key figure Councillor Thomas Kerr (formerly a Tory on Glasgow City Council) and others. Now wishing to be known, at least temporarily, as ‘plain old Malcolm from Greenock’, Offord is in fact a multi-millionaire yacht enthusiast, a one-time merchant banker who made his fortune in the City of London and has been a significant donor to the Conservatives in Scotland. 

Whilst money does not appear to be a major issue for Reform, there are questions about how established they are in local communities across Scotland, and their limited ability to conduct a ground campaign. One role of those wishing to challenge the advance of Reform will be to collect the material they circulate and to assess their ability to build local infrastructure. 

Our point about the limited ability of Reform to mobilise in the traditional way must be linked to an admission that this is proving difficult for ‘mainstream’ parties and the left as well. What things do mobilise people? The genocidal assault on Gaza generated a response from many concerned progressive people … but there are all-too-many signs of the recurrent tendency for progressive people to divide amongst themselves – one example has been what some people see as sectarian attacks by Your Party members including Zahra Sultana on both the SNP and the Greens at the weekend. This is at odds with the need for a broad alliance type response to Reform, rather than an insistence by any one political tendency on the unique and particular positions which they hold.

The ongoing failure of the left to project a coherent and hegemonic alternative is what is leaving the political stage open to the right.

That there is a way back for the left was demonstrated recently by the success of the Scotland Demands Better campaign: progressive initiatives such as these demonstrate the potential for success of unity in action that engages with peoples’ concerns.

Polling suggests that Reform may do well in the north east of Scotland. Proportional representation means that the regional list system provides an opportunity. Social factors relating to fishing and farming, and grievances about pylons, roads and oil industry jobs enhance the party’s prospects. Reform's established stance on immigration and known local candidates will ensure a hearing in this part of the country. 

But whilst Aberdeenshire is the likely place to look for any Reform breakthrough it will not be the only place where the politics of scapegoating and division makes progress. The Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election did not see Reform win, despite hype, but a lot has happened to Labour since then. What happens in the West will be important, although alliances, here as elsewhere, are complex. 

What is yet to happen anywhere in Scotland, unlike in areas like Kent where Reform run the council, is for their populist rhetoric to be tested against their practice in office. Scrutiny of this kind will hopefully not be required but what is needed is exposure of their links to the far-right evident at protests across Scotland.

Also worth considering is the degree to which Reform’s unionism will limit their vote. How much this is exposed by the campaigning of the SNP remains to be seen. Perhaps more effective will be the Greens positioning themselves as the polar opposites of Reform on their social agenda - but also on their approach to tax. 

In addition to electoral opposition, there is the need for a deeper resistance to the politics of Reform and the cultural basis for their advance. We need to tackle the language, thinking and activity that fosters an aggressive individualism that denigrates all those considered different. 

But we also need to build a politics that connects with working class communities to offer change to people’s daily lives, drawing on international examples, like those of Copenhagen, New York or Graz where these assist. A politics that draws on existing local activity and projects to offer an alternative to austerity and inequality. 

Scotland's cultural figures, events and institutions need to be encouraged to be a vocal part of this. As do our trade union councils and active trade union branches, imaginatively building on existing activity. Elected politicians need to assist, in spite of the constraints of their parties. We need to expose Reform for what they are. We need to be brave and have meaningful conversations with those that might be drawn to Reform's ideas but can be won to a different view. A view that draws on the best of our communities. We have a lot to do in the run-up to May and beyond. 

Published 11 February 2026

A footnote about the Gramsci quote: left-wing writers in the London Review of Books (Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, 6 November 2025) and The National (Jonathon Shafi, 23 December 2025) have recently and forgivably repeated versions of a common misquote of Gramsci along the lines (Shafi’s version) of ‘the old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters’. Responsibility for the promotion of this glammed-up, dumbed-down and unhelpfully inaccurate version lies with the unfortunately well-known incoherent charlatan Slavoj Žižek, including in his 2012 article, ‘Living in the Time of Monsters’, in which he wrote of a ‘well-known phrase attributed to Gramsci’. ‘Attributed to’ is Zizekian for not bothering to take the time to look for a source.