PROFESSOR John Curtice has given his verdict on First Minister John Swinney’s calls for a cross-party conference to tackle the rise of the far-right – suggesting that it will be “difficult” for the Tories to join.
The Strathclyde University professor talked to BBC Radio Scotland about the proposal from the SNP leader, who on Wednesday said that a failure to unite against the “increasingly extreme far right” would “leave devolution dangerously exposed”.
Swinney called for a cross-party conference in April, which he said would also include churches, trades unions, and charities. It has been widely read as a reaction to the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK – which is currently topping UK-wide polls due to their support in England.
Asked about the Reform’s support, Curtice told the BBC: “If we look north of the Border at the moment, on average, when people are asked what they would do for the next Scottish Parliament election, between 12 and 13% of people say they will vote for Reform.
“That's running around a half of the level of Reform currently in British-wide polls, where they're in fact narrowly ahead of all the other parties.”
However, Curtice added that due to Holyrood’s voting system, Farage’s party looked set to return “a potentially significant phalanx of MSPs”.
Asked about Swinney’s plans for a conference to consider how to combat the rise of the far-right and Reform UK, Curtice said: “I think there are perhaps three things to say.
“The first is, we should acknowledge that some of this may simply be genuine, that is that Mr Swinney believes that lowering immigration is inimical to Scotland's interests, that more broadly, some of what Mr Farage says, does is inconsistent with Scotland's values, and he thinks that all the other parties in Holyrood should treat Reform in much the same way as the parties in Germany currently treat AfD [by refusing to work with them].
“Now the second thing we should say is that Reform do not pose a particular threat to the SNP's chances in this election.
“If you look at where Reform’s vote is coming from, it's coming primarily from those people who voted for Unionist parties back in July, and people who voted No back in 2014 – which takes us to the third and more perhaps Machiavellian point, which is what I think Mr Swinney is aiming to do is to sow further division within the Unionists ranks.
Curtice said that while polling showed the “rise of Reform is primarily adding to Anas Sarwar's difficulties” rather than the SNP’s, he said that the First Minister’s calls for a conference may be tricky for the Tories.
“I think Mr Swinney, apart from perhaps a genuine wish to try to draw a line against Reform, is perhaps not unaware that politically it's advantageous to him to sow further division within the Unionist ranks,” Curtice said.
“Of course, for the Conservatives in particular, this has been a rather particularly difficult issue.
“Reform took a lot of support off them in July, they've taken further support off them since, and there are some Conservative voters who would prefer there to be some understanding and deal between Conservative and Reform in the not too distant future.
“So, certainly for Labour ideologically, it's relatively easy to say, ‘yep, sure, we will turn up, at least we're willing to to be involved in this’, perhaps rather more difficult for the Conservatives.”
Curtice noted that Farage would argue that Reform UK is not a far-right movement, adding: “In the end, at the moment, Reform are doing well as well as they are across the UK because they are succeeding in picking up the fact that there are people out there who are deeply unhappy about the state of the economy, deeply unhappy about the state of public services, unhappy about immigration, and doubt the ability of all those parties that might join this summit to actually do anything about it.”
