Reform’s gains in England ‘bad news’ for Scottish Labour and Tories – Curtice

Reform UK’s gains in last week’s local elections are probably “bad news” for Scottish Labour and the Conservatives ahead of next year’s Scottish election, polling expert Sir John Curtice has said.

The Strathclyde University professor said the results in English local elections are also “good news” for SNP leader John Swinney, because Nigel Farage’s party is primarily taking votes from the First Minister’s opponents.

Reform UK gained more than 600 seats and took control of 10 local authorities in Thursday’s local elections.

Scots will go to the polls in May next year for the Scottish Parliament elections.

Speaking to the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland radio programme on Monday, Sir John said the results from last Thursday show there is “no reason to disbelieve” the message from opinion polls about Reform’s level of support.

He said that while Reform is not polling as high in Scotland as it is south of the border, relatively few people are switching their votes from the SNP to Mr Farage’s party.

“I think the message from down south on Thursday is bad news for Anas Sarwar. It’s bad news for the Scottish Conservatives,” he said.

“And it is good news for John Swinney, not because it indicates that the SNP are going to ride high in the polls.

“It’s simply that he probably doesn’t have to do an awful lot better than the SNP did last summer – but that, given the way the Holyrood electoral system works, probably means that the SNP would pick up the vast bulk of the first-past-the-post seats.

“That would not be sufficient to give the SNP a majority or anything like it, but certainly would ensure the SNP is still the dominant party in the next Scottish Parliament.”

However Sir John said there is still “a long time to go” until next year’s elections.

In April, Mr Swinney chaired a summit to battle the rise of the far right, which he said included Reform UK.

Other political parties, including Labour, attended the summit but the Conservatives did not take part.

In response, Reform UK – which was not invited – described the SNP leader as a “democracy denier” and accused him of being scared of the party’s popularity.