Ash Regan on the rise of Reform in Scotland, what is a woman and why ‘no-one resigns anymore’
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2025
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On the podcast, she talks to Lucy about the difference between Alba and the SNP, the threat of Reform in Scotland, the ‘performative’ nature of Scottish politics, the Supreme Court ruling over what is a woman, and why she was right to resign over the Gender Recognition Bill.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Post-Morton has begun on a historic set of local elections, but where does each party go from here? |
| 0:06.4 | Is reform unstoppable? Is Kemi the one to lead the Conservative rebuild? And do Labor really get it? |
| 0:12.5 | On Wednesday the 7th of May, join the spectators panel and special guests, Zia Yusuf and Jacob Rees-Mogg to unpack these questions as well as the broader implications of the local elections on British politics. |
| 0:24.1 | For tickets, go to www.spictator.com.combeau-Dough. |
| 0:33.9 | Hello and welcome to this special edition of Coffee House Shots. I'm Lucy Dunn and this is the first |
| 0:38.8 | in a series of episodes where I'll be speaking to a variety of Scottish politicians in the lead |
| 0:42.6 | up to the 26 Scottish Parliament elections after a rather tumultuous five years in Scottish politics. |
| 0:49.3 | Today I'm joined by the Hollywood leader of the pro-independence Alba Party Ash Regan. |
| 0:55.5 | Ash was formerly a member of the SNP and even ran to be the party leader after Nicola Sturgeon resigned in 2023. |
| 1:00.5 | She defected to the late Alex Salmon's Alba party 18 months ago and ran to be party leader |
| 1:04.2 | after he passed away. She's narrowly lost to Kenny McCaskill but remains a prominent voice |
| 1:08.5 | in the Scottish Parliament. So Ash, thanks very much for |
| 1:11.0 | joining us. So it's been a busy few years in Scottish politics and I can imagine things |
| 1:15.8 | will be getting even busier in the run up to next year's Hollywood elections. You're in quite |
| 1:21.0 | a different position from previous elections, aren't you? Given the last Hollywood Parliament |
| 1:25.1 | election, you stood under the S&P banner, but now |
| 1:27.5 | you're standing as an ALBA party candidate. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how |
| 1:31.8 | it's changed? Yeah, so if I'd have kept my head down and prioritised my career, like many of my |
| 1:37.1 | former S&P colleagues, and no doubt I'd be contesting my former SMP constituency seat that I had held for two cycles. So yeah, I've been |
| 1:47.5 | in for nine years, elected under the S&P both times, last time with a 52% of the vote in 2021. |
| 1:55.5 | That seat actually because of boundary changes does not now exist. So the boundary commission |
| 1:59.7 | have been working their magic, |
... |
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