Why thousands of Scots support Reform (and it's not because they're racist)

And who can forget the sight of women’s rights campaigner Elaine Miller who, from her vantage point in the public gallery, lifted her skirt to expose her merkin to show her disgust at the MSPs’ decision to pass the Gender Recognition Reform Bill?

By Elaine’s admittedly high standards – she is a part-time stand-up comic after all – Wednesday’s urgent question by Patrick Harvie was pretty tame. There were no gasps of horror as the co-leader of the Scottish Greens got to his feet, at least none that were audible.

‘Extremist fringe’

During the 15-minute debate that ensued, no MSP or disgruntled observer exposed bare flesh. No voices were raised in anger. No one was banished from the chamber. But it was a farce all the same, because Harvie’s coy yet ‘urgent’ question was about the use of the parliament’s “facilities” by MSPs and staff. For facilities, read toilets.

His concern centred round a recent edict by the parliament’s Corporate Body which declared that, for the foreseeable future, “facilities” designated as male or female will be based on “biological sex”. There will also be additional gender-neutral “facilities” for those MSPs, staff and public who identify as transgender or non-binary. A sensible move one might think, following the recent Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman.

But Harvie was having none of it, getting up on his high horse to compare the Corporate Body – made up of the Presiding Officer and four MSPs, including his Scottish Green colleague Maggie Chapman – to the “extremist fringe of the United States Republican Party”. A tad hyperbolic, even for him.

A handful of equally outraged MSPs chipped in, with Alex-Cole Hamilton, leader of the Lib Dems no less, demanding that no one should be asked to show their birth certificate before spending a penny. Much to my surprise, Lorna Slater, a former government minister, revealed there is a lively internet conspiracy that she is a trans woman and asked if she will require a medical examination prior to using a toilet.

Education, health, cost of living

Veteran MSP Christine Grahame, who was responding on behalf of the Corporate Body, kept her cool in the face of such daft questions, but an exasperated Russell Findlay took to his feet to express his impatience about this “farcical waste of time”.

The Tory leader said: “The people of Scotland expect politicians to focus on what matters – rising household bills, their children’s education, getting a general practitioner appointment, fixing the roads and keeping communities safe, yet the priority for out-of-touch SNP, Labour, Lib Dem and Green MSPs is an urgent debate about the Holyrood toilets.”

If the people of Scotland had been watching Scottish Parliament TV instead of getting on with their lives, you might have heard a resounding cheer across the country at Findlay’s intervention. Harvie’s urgent question may have only taken up 15 minutes of parliamentary time, but it was a telling snapshot of Scotland’s political class which exposed the gulf between them and the rest of us.

The cultural divide between MSPs with their lanyards and pet causes and voters struggling to cope with the economic and social upheaval of the last decade could not be more stark than it was on Wednesday. While MSPs are fretting about where they should pee, we are worrying about whether our granny will get the social care she needs or if our children will get the education they deserve.

Little wonder that Nigel Farage and his Reform party have spooked every political leader from John Swinney to Keir Starmer. Farage’s popular rhetoric, cynical though it is, appeals to an electorate that is disillusioned with smug politicians so immersed in their private, elitist world that they are blind to what is happening in the real one.

‘Litany of failures’

The majority of people who will vote Reform at Thursday’s Hamilton by-election are not racists, as some would have us believe. Most will not even have noticed Reform’s despicable campaign ad, which crudely argued that the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar will “prioritise” Pakistani people.

As former Labour MP Tom Harris argued in a newspaper column earlier this week, most voters are “simply sick of the litany of failures and disappointments which have been served up by successive governments…” He went on: “Voters don’t support Reform because of their policies; they support Reform because it is not one of the old parties.”

Scotland’s leading election guru, Sir John Curtice, doesn’t think that Reform will win. He was reported this week as saying that while it’s not impossible, it would be a “spectacular” result if they managed to pull it off. “I think even coming second would be quite an achievement,” he said.

But he pointed out that Scotland is a different world to the one 12 months ago that saw Scottish Labour pick up 37 seats at the general election. And recent polls suggest that Reform will be the second biggest party at Holyrood after the 2026 election, with 20 per cent of the popular vote.

Nearly 60 years ago, another Hamilton by-election heralded a new era in Scottish politics, when Winnie Ewing became only the second SNP MP to win a seat at Westminster. You can trace a clear path from her legendary 1967 victory to the 2014 referendum.

Reform only needs to come close to victory to send shock waves through Scotland’s political elite, but the chances are they will be too engrossed in their own private concerns to notice. Trouble is, the rest of Scotland will, and we know where the blame lies.