Can Reform conquer Scotland?
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dissatisfaction with the established political parties is driving a ‘tartan bounce’ in Scotland for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Far from being an English phenomenon, Reform is polling favourably with Scottish voters. There will be a by-election next week for the Scottish Parliament seat of Hamilton, in what will be Reform’s first big test inside the politics of devolved government.
For councillor Thomas Kerr, who defected from the Scottish Conservatives to Reform earlier this year, Reform’s appeal in Scotland is no surprise. He joins Lucy Dunn to explain why he thinks the ‘sky is the limit’ for Reform, why Farage is an asset to the party in Scotland and to explain Reform’s current views around devolution powers.
Produced by Patrick Gibbons.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | As a coffee house shots listener, you will be all too familiar with the headlines that have dominated the news cycle in the past month. |
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| 0:49.7 | Hello and welcome to the special edition of Coffee House Shots. |
| 0:53.1 | I'm Lucy Dunn and this is another episode |
| 0:54.9 | in a series we'll be talking to a variety of people in Scottish politics and will lead up to the |
| 0:59.1 | 26 Scottish Parliament elections after a tumultuous five years in Scottish politics. Today I'm joined |
| 1:05.7 | by Reform UK's Thomas Kerr. Thomas is formerly of the Conservative Party, having joined when he was only 14 years |
| 1:11.7 | old. He was seen as a rising star in the Scottish Conservative Party and was put forward to |
| 1:15.6 | contest the 2023 Rutherland and Hamilton West by-election after the SMP's Margaret Ferrier was |
| 1:20.6 | suspended over breaking COVID rules. He was unsuccessful but rose through the ranks to become the |
| 1:24.9 | Tory leader on Glasgow City Council. Before, earlier |
| 1:27.8 | this year, and as the spectator exclusively revealed, he defected to Nigel Farage's Reform UK. |
| 1:33.9 | Recent polling shows reform consistently outperforming the Scottish Conservatives and even Labour. |
| 1:38.9 | Next week, there will be a Scottish parliamentary by-election in the constituency of Hamilton, |
| 1:43.2 | Larkhall and Stonehouse. |
| 1:47.6 | And this will be the first big electoral test for reform in Scotland. |
| 1:51.0 | And part-leader Nigel Farage is heading up early next week. |
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