Why Scottish Tories cannot defeat Nigel Farage's Reform UK by copying their policies

To borrow a phrase from Oscar Wilde on reading of the death of Little Nell in Dickens’ Old Curiosity Shop, it would take a heart of stone not to laugh at the fallout between Elon Musk and Nigel Farage. Having just praised Farage as Britain’s saviour, and supposedly promised an eye-watering sum in financial support for Reform UK, the world’s richest man has now turned on him, saying at the weekend on X: “The Reform Party needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes.”

There was always a risk that a party whose popularity was largely built around the personality of its leader would eventually end up imploding. The Musk intervention will be embarrassing for Farage, but it would be foolhardy for traditional political parties to believe that there is an inevitability to the Reform bubble bursting.

We have seen across the world a rise in political populism, driven by a frustration many voters have with a political system which they feel is increasingly disconnected from their concerns. This is exactly the approach that the SNP deployed for decades, and particularly during the 2014 independence referendum, which rather puts into context John Swinney’s cynical warnings against populism in his New Year address this week.

Former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson's centre-right policies worked in the past and can do so again (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell) | Getty Images

Tories’ mistakes on immigration

Reform are the current beneficiaries of this sentiment, lapping up votes from those scunnered with the state of politics. Some of Reform’s support is drawn from former Conservatives, still waiting to see what Kemi Badenoch’s leadership will mean for the direction of the party. This group consists of individuals of traditional Conservative views, who feel badly let down by a party which, in government, lost the trust of too many. Whether on tax, on immigration, or on cultural issues, the Conservatives in government became increasingly out of step with their voters.

Immigration is the best example of a policy area where it went wrong. Regular readers of this column will know that I am sympathetic to a level of controlled immigration as beneficial both to our economy and society. But what we saw under a Conservative government in recent years was historically high levels of immigration, putting serious pressure on housing and public services. At the same time, the rhetoric from government, which was increasingly hostile to immigration, did not match the reality of the policy on the ground.

So, as a party, we lost support from those on both sides of the argument. Those who were instinctively sympathetic to immigration looked at the language of ministers and were put off by it. Those who were hostile to increased immigration looked at the actual figures and were equally repelled. By failing to match the language with the delivery of policy, we managed to alienate both sides of the debate.

Reform further splits unionist vote

Of course, it is not just from the Conservatives that Reform is drawing votes. As we have seen in recent local government by-elections in Scotland, Reform is actually polling better in more traditional working-class areas than they are in leafy suburbs, or in country wards. Across the UK, it is Labour which is more threatened by Reform than the Tories.

Whilst Kemi Badenoch has the luxury of time before her next major electoral test, for Russell Findlay and the Scottish Conservatives, our challenge is more pressing. Current polling would suggest that Reform could well end up as the fourth largest party at Holyrood in 2026, potentially with a greater number of MSPs than either the Greens or Liberal Democrats.

What this does, of course, is simply split the pro-Union vote in Scotland to an even greater extent than at present. Although John Swinney seems to have made some progress in stabilising the decline in SNP support, Reform’s intervention is likely to mean that the SNP could still form the next administration at Holyrood with a much-reduced vote share on 2021, simply because the opposition on the pro-UK side is now split four ways. Voters who are concerned about the future of the United Kingdom need to bear that in mind when considering whether to give Reform their support.

But there is also a need for us as Scottish Conservatives to set out our own policy agenda, that might attract those voters we have lost, not just to Reform, but also to Labour and the Liberal Democrats. In the general election last year, we saw a high level of tactical voting amongst pro-Union party supporters across Scotland, to the mutual benefit of all. If we want to see that continue into the 2026 Holyrood election, we need to be conscious that shifting towards Reform’s policy agenda might well be counterproductive.

Davidson’s recipe for success

Under the leadership of Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservatives were able to assemble a voter coalition of those who were concerned about the prospect of another independence referendum, many of whom had never voted Conservative previously. In the general election, some of these voters went to Labour, in order to see change at Westminster. Now, with Scottish Labour struggling due to the drag effect of Keir Starmer’s unpopularity in government, the opportunity exists to win back their support.

That will not be done if our focus is leaning into the Reform agenda, with its simplistic, populist positions on issues such as immigration. What we have instead is a vision of a dynamic pro-growth Scotland, which through an expanding economy raises the tax revenues we need to deliver quality public services – the very services which people presently see as crumbling before their eyes, despite record levels of inputs.

It is by having a distinctive, moderate, centre-right agenda that the Scottish Conservatives will progress, and it is on developing that that I and my Scottish Conservatives MSP colleagues will be devoting our energies in the coming months.

Murdo Fraser is a Scottish Conservative MSP for Mid-Scotland and Fife