AS REFORM’S electoral prospects improve, so do those of the SNP. Dissatisfaction with Labour or the Conservatives brings many to Reform, but there are other voters who believe they can’t stomach Reform, most likely because they see it as English. So, they gravitate back to SNP faute de mieux, thinking it’s the only bolthole for a patriot, despite its failures.
A Reform party with ambition limited to being the main opposition to SNP might not care about that but be satisfied with hoovering up the votes of the moderates in the two declining parties and relying upon the greens to soak up the ideologists. Yet Malcolm Offord has just shown how Reform might attract disillusioned SNP voters and otherwise homeless patriots, realising a grander vision: a majority.
Fans of Think Scotland who managed to read my Scotland needs an alternative – Reform and Reboot, will immediately recognise its closeness to the prescriptions for Scotland provided by Malcolm Offord in his CPS pamphlet Wealthy Nation Healthy Nation, now featured in summarised form on Think Scotland. Both reflect the changing zeitgeist.
For a start, both make much of the historic identity of Scotland as an open, unideological and enterprising nation, which produced some of the most able traders, innovators, and scientists the world has ever seen. Reminding us of that is a good step along the way of reviving an identity for Scotland different from the curmudgeonly victimhood concocted by the SNP leadership of recent years.
And Offord emphasises the key connection between our identity, our economy and our ability to provide the services we all now expect and play our part in the wider world. Without a strong economy, we have no hope.
Joining Offord’s writing is Gerard Lyons. He sets out the steps that must be taken to rebuild the Scottish economy. With his overview of, and prescriptions for, the economy, he provides impressive detail. The prescriptions boil down to four key points. We need:
- A pro enterprise strategy
- Devolution of economic initiative
- Curbing of state expenditure, regulation and taxation
- Reform of education as proposed by Tim Collins in the same publication[1].
It can only congratulate Lyons to say that he is encapsulating the diagnoses and proposals of an army of Scots predecessors: Ewen Stewart ‘s many critiques of the Scottish government’s management of our economy, Tom Hunter’s Raising Scotland’s Economic Growth Rate, the Logan Report and the Muscatelli Report among many others.
There are similarities in overall approach with Jon Moynihan’s Return to Growth, too. In other words, all the wise ones agree what needs to be done, grosso modo. What’s been lacking is a popular grasp of the plan and that the electorate believes there’s someone in politics who can walk the walk as well as talk the talk.
Reform UK has a great advantage in its leader. Canvassing in Hamilton, in Edinburgh, and in Fife I found that the principal reason why people are thinking of voting Reform UK is that Nigel Farage is a leader who can get things done, even when they didn’t actually support the doing! Brexit is attributed to him, getting the established parties to admit the seriousness of the immigration crisis is attributed to him and, I am confident that, since his speech of early November, he will, before long, have attributed to him the pushing up, onto the agenda of politics, the economic crisis too. Didn’t Rachel Reeves rush to come clean about the mess we’re in, on 4th November, the very day after Nigel Farage had shown it to us on the 3rd?[2]
All to the good, but not enough for Reform in Scotland to win over those patriots who may yet return the SNP to undeserved power. Decades of SNP propaganda have made many resistant to parties perceived as English-centric. No matter how good Reform’s UK prescriptions might be, there is a danger that they will not be sufficient to win votes away from a party which is seen as the only truly Scottish party.
But here comes Braveheart! With Wealthy Nation Healthy Nation Malcolm Offord has produced a philosophical approach and a statement of policies which, once understood, can enthuse and inspire all those who want the best for Scotland. What now has to happen, is that those ideas must be translated into words that fire the commoners rather than just placate the pundits.
Voters must know that this is not merely more Westminster mouth but comes from Scotland and is advanced by Scots competent to deliver: men and women who want to win the Scottish Parliament not for want of a job but to revitalise and reunify our country, to put the brake on our decline and make Scotland fit for purpose in a world of multiple threats.
Along with those activists with whom I have canvassed, I believe not only that a Reform UK government at Westminster would tackle existential issues facing the UK as a whole, but also that a transformational Scottish government led by Reform will have an enormous influence on how Reform UK is seen throughout the UK and make a vital contribution to the victory towards which we foot soldiers of Reform are working.
So the next steps are: To translate the ideas for a transformation of Scotland into battle criesand To ensure the people know that Reform in Scotland is credible because it has potential ministers who walk as well as talk. That, unlike the SNP, they have a vision of Scotland’s future that they can, and will, deliver.
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[1] Tim Collins’ essay deserves a full review than is possible here, as does the essay on the NHS by Alan McNeill and colleagues, all in Offord, Malcolm (2025) Wealthy Nation, Healthy Nation: A philosophy and policies for a prosperous Scotland London: CPS.
[2] Nigel Farage: My economic vision for Britain, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObXVj2QIyOA
