Analysis: Reform UK Scotland adds to crowded Holyrood ballot

The emergence of Reform UK Scotland as the latest suitor for votes north of the Border promises to make it one of the most crowded Holyrood regional lists since devolution in May’s election.

Whether Scots will see the newcomer as a valid right-of-centre alternative is another matter.

The party will join George Galloway's pro-union Respect party on the regional list ballot for May, along with new pro-independence alternatives to the SNP – the Alliance for Independence (AFI) and Scotia Future.

Michelle Ballantyne during her time as a Tory MSP with former leader Jackson Carlaw

Reform UK is effectively Nigel Farage's Brexit Party re-badged.

It managed to secure something of a coup at Monday’s launch when it unveiled the sitting South of Scotland MSP Michelle Ballantyne, who resigned the Tory whip in November, as its new Scottish leader.

A strong pro-union message will be at the heart of the party's campaign in Scotland. UK party leader Richard Tice wasn't bashful about this at the launch.

"We've fought and died together on the battlefield to protect our freedoms as a union and we defend ourselves today against our foes as a union," he said.

But the pro-union ticket would appear to be a shrinking market in Scotland as consistent polling shows a majority of Scots now back independence.

It may the new party’s demand for a rethink of the tough lockdown restrictions across the country will strike more a chord with Scots.

Political leaders must adopt a more pragmatic approach to decision making, it says. The grim reality is that the virus isn’t going away and the economy cannot remain mothballed indefinitely.

The virus is here "forever", Mr Tice insisted, and will continue to mutate. Instead of the focus of blanket lockdowns, we should instead be thinking about how we learn to live with it.

A push to get children back in school quickly could be at the heart of the party's election push if this hasn't happened before the campaign kicks off.

But given the absence of traction which its predecessor Brexit Party had in Scotland and the challenges of launching a new political party at the height of a public health pandemic, with coronavirus dominating the news agenda, the latest addition to Scotland's electoral landscape faces an uphill task.

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