How Nigel Farage's Reform UK aims to lob a grenade into Scottish politics

Polls suggest Reform UK is on course to win around a dozen seats at next year's Scottish Parliament election, and senior figures are out to shake things up.

Thomas Kerr, a Glasgow councillor who grabbed headlines last month after defecting to Reform, said the party would break the existing political consensus.

"You've already seen the impact it's having without us being there," he told The Scotsman.

First Minister John Swinney has vowed to “confront” Reform rather than cosying up to them, while Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay has warned a vote for Mr Farage’s party will only benefit the SNP.

Mr Findlay has questioned what Reform even stands for north of the Border. “They can continue hiding away or they can come out and start telling people what they actually believe,” he told this newspaper recently.

He despaired at “the further fragmentation of the pro-union vote”.

Meanwhile, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has ruled out formal coalitions or deals, but stressed he would not turn his back on a good idea from any opposition MSP, regardless of party.

Many have interpreted this as leaving the door open to more informal arrangements. “If people vote for Labour, they’re opening the door for Farage to influence Scottish politics,” Mr Swinney said this week.

In short, Holyrood is braced for the rise of Reform. Internal polling carried out by one party north of the Border suggests those most likely to switch are older men who have lost hope in the Scottish and UK governments.

A senior Scottish Labour figure accepted the party is "bleeding a little at the fringe" to Reform, but insisted this is not a source of huge concern. Mr Sarwar is focused on winning constituencies, they said, as opposed to relying on list votes.

Mr Kerr rejected any notion that Reform is “hiding away” in Scotland. “I've done more media, I suspect, over the past three weeks than most of the Scottish Conservative MSPs in the past five years,” he said.

He also dismissed the idea the party needs a separate leadership in Scotland ahead of next year’s vote, pointing to Reform’s strong polling.

"We have a method that's working in Scotland now, which is Nigel, and I don't know why we would want to try and detract away from that,” he said.

"So I don't buy that at all. There will be spokespeople like myself, who will speak to the press and will be voices in Scotland. But until we have a group of MSPs elected, there's no need for us to appoint a leader as such at the moment."

Mr Kerr, who represents the Shettleston ward and previously led the Tory group on Glasgow City Council, said he would love to see Mr Farage take part in a TV debate ahead of the Holyrood vote.

"It would be TV gold for you guys in the press, anyway,” he said. “Nigel Farage, the most exciting man in politics, versus Russell Findlay and John Swinney, the two most boring men in politics."

Reform will have a fully-costed manifesto ready for the Holyrood election, he said. The party backs devolution, but wants to see “fundamental” reform.

"Russell Findlay is very right in calling out the Holyrood bubble and the establishment and consensus that's existed in Holyrood,” Mr Kerr said. “He's bang on there. The problem is the Scottish Conservatives have been part of that consensus for a long time."

The councillor added: "I think Reform will actually break that consensus that exists. I think it will be about trying to move whoever is in government back to being more sensible.

"Making sure that taxes are cut for working families. Cutting regulation for business, to make sure Scotland's a pro-business environment.

"Scrapping some of the madness that net-zero targets are making, which is making my constituents poorer and making Scotland much more dependent on foreign oil and gas imports.

"I think it's about trying to bring whoever is in the Scottish Government back to the common sense viewpoint that the vast majority of the public have, and stop being in this madness of ideology that has existed inside Holyrood for so long."

Does Reform represent a grenade about to be lobbed into Scottish politics? "I think it is probably like a grenade, and I think it will give it a shake up, but I think it's a shake up that the Scottish Parliament and Scottish politics badly needs,” Mr Kerr said.

He argued the First Minister’s apparent refusal to engage with Reform was “anti-democratic”, saying: "If Reform has as many MSPs as the polls are predicting, the public will be sending us there.

"It's actually very anti-democratic of John Swinney to have this attitude of 'we won't work with them, we're not interested in speaking to them about the Budget, we're not interested in any good ideas'.

"That sort of narrow-minded nationalism is how we've ended up in the position that we're in now.”

He added: "The public are sending us there, and they're sending us there with a very clear mandate, which is to bring fundamental change. And John Swinney and Anas Sarwar - whoever is going to be first minister out of the two of them - are going to have to deal with that.

"Because as I say, I don't think that this is going to disappear. I am very confident there will be Reform MSPs, and they will have a big say in what is going to happen in Scottish politics."

Green MSP Maggie Chapman accused Reform of representing “the very worst kind” of politics. “It is a toxic party that thrives on spreading fear and division, and scapegoating the most marginalised people in our society,” she said.