Two big stories look set to define the Scottish Parliament election in May 2026. The first is whether the SNP can do well enough following a drubbing at the 2024 general election to remain in power for a fifth consecutive term. The second, and the one which has captured the most media attention, is the surge in support for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Despite lacking a leader, a clear policy programme or much campaigning infrastructure in Scotland, Reform have built on the 7% vote share they achieved last July and could win a substantial degree of support in the next devolved elections. These two narratives are becoming increasingly intertwined, with First Minister John Swinney convening a civic forum on how mainstream society should respond to the “threat of the far right” next month, specifically referencing Reform.
But Reform support in Scotland is not especially well-understood. Some, including Scottish Labour Anas Sarwar, have chalked it up to a “scunner factor” with politics in general. But it’s not just the disaffected or disengaged that Reform are appealing to – in fact, it’s mostly a specific subset of anti-independence voters. Using Scottish Opinion Monitor data collected between the 25th of February and the 3rd of March 2025 (n=1,200), in this post we explain what motivates Reform support in Scotland, break down the demographics of the party’s growing voter base and discuss how high their “ceiling” might be next May.
Vote intention
Reform picked up 7% of Scottish votes at the general election last July, performing the best outside the four main parties and receiving nearly twice as much support as the significantly more established Scottish Greens. This is impressive on its own considering the UK electoral system and the degree of anti-SNP tactical voting we’ve observed in Scotland in recent years, which would seem to deter voters from backing candidates of smaller parties. Figure 1 shows vote flows between 2019 and 2024 from our general election panel dataset, with a focus on movement to Reform. The bulk of the party’s 2024 voters switched directly from the Conservatives, who in 2019 stood on the “Get Brexit Done” platform.
So far, so predictable. Scottish Conservative elites were never the strongest supporters of Brexit, but the party’s message at UK level was clear in 2019. What is new is that Reform support has climbed since last summer’s election. Table 1 shows Holyrood constituency vote intention from our February Scoop dataset, with population weights applied and undecideds removed (14.9% of the entire sample). Reform sit in a comfortable third place in our poll, with 17-18% across both constituency and region ballots.
Table 1: Party support on constituency and list vote
| Ballot | Con | Labour | Lib Dem | SNP | Green | Reform | Other |
| Const. | 11.7 | 20.9 | 8.7 | 32.6 | 7.3 | 17.1 | 1.7 |
| List | 12.1 | 17.9 | 8.9 | 30 | 10.1 | 17.8 | 1.8 |
| Diff. | +0.4 | -3 | +0.2 | -2.6 | +2.8 | +0.7 | +0.1 |
Results are row percentages
In Figure 2, we break current constituency vote intention down by how respondents voted on this part of the ballot in 2021. This shows that around one third of previous Conservative voters have transferred directly to Reform. They also attract modest support from the other pro-union parties. The SNP vote is the most stable, with 59% of 2021 voters planning to stick with the party and their voters least likely to defect to Reform. Although there was previously some speculation that Reform could appeal to disaffected SNP voters, and the two certainly share an anti-status quo message, the ideological uniformity and strongly pro-EU attitudes of the SNP coalition at recent elections, coupled with Reform messages designed to appeal to English national identifiers in the English electorate, are obvious constraint on SNP to Reform switching.
Why are voters turning to Reform?
What’s motivating this support? In some ways, the answer is the most obvious one. Current Reform supporters are the most likely to have voted Leave in 2016, the least likely to support rejoining the EU and the most anti-immigration. As we suggested during the SES fringe at Scottish Labour conference in February, the party are simply providing an option for a segment of Scottish public opinion that is currently under-represented among Scottish parties.
There are some interesting wrinkles in the data, however. Table 2 shows how party support in constituency vote intention breaks down by referendum votes and current constitutional preferences on both independence and EU membership. The figures were obtained by subtracting Yes from No and Remain/Rejoin from Leave/Stay out to give net support for the union and Brexit by party.
Looking first at past behaviour, Reform supporters are actually somewhat more likely than remaining Conservative supporters to have voted Yes to independence in 2014. However, the current attitudes of Reform supporters suggests a narrowing gap between the two right-wing parties, with Reformers significantly more pro-union than in 2014. Reform supporters are also the only group with majority support for Leave in 2016, with even the Conservatives slightly more supportive of Remain (+8.6). Since the group has become even more opposed to the European Union.
| Party | Net No 2014 % | Net No 2025 % | Net Remain 2016 % | Net Rejoin 2025 % |
| Conservative | +86.9 | +97.8 | +8.6 | +0.6 |
| Labour | +54.9 | +46.7 | +43.6 | +64.6 |
| SNP | -58.3 | -84.6 | +53.2 | +82.4 |
| Reform | +14.2 | +56.1 | -38.7 | -51.9 |
It’s fair to say that those switching to Reform are broadly anti-independence and pro-Brexit, and that they have become more so since the referendums, particularly in relation to independence. This corresponds well with our previous finding that many Yes/Leave and No/Remain voters shifted preferences between 2016 and 2021, aligning their preferences either in favour of the No/Leave or Yes/Remain options represented by the UK and Scottish Governments of the time respectively.
Reform supporters also stand out in terms of their general political attitudes. Figure 3 shows mean left-right self-placement scores by constituency vote intention, and Reform voters on average identify as the furthest to the right.
Immigration attitudes are also strongly associated with Reform vote intention versus other parties. We asked respondents several agree-disagree questions about the impact of immigration and whether it should be increased or reduced. As shown in Figure 4, Reform supporters stand out much more on this metric, being substantially more anti-immigration on average than Conservative supporters.
Another way Reform supporters are distinct from other parties’ voters is in the prevalence of populist or “anti-elite” attitudes. We asked a variety of questions on this which will require more detailed analysis, but Figure 5 shows the breakdown on a representative agree-disagree item, “I’d rather put my trust in the wisdom of ordinary people than the opinions of experts”. The agree-disagree scale has seven points, but we’ve aggregated these into three categories to aid interpretation. Reform supporters are clearly much more sceptical of experts than any other party group.
Overall, when it comes to general political attitudes, the type of voters Reform are attracting in Scotland are similar to those they’ve appealed to in other parts of the UK – anti-immigration, pro-Brexit and broadly sceptical of the establishment. Although there is a degree of diversity in attitudes to the constitution among this group, on this evidence the party are unlikely to pose a serious ongoing threat to the SNP. Labour supporters, meanwhile, hold very similar views to SNP voters, with the only real division coming on the constitution.
Is there a ceiling?
Were we to cast Reform as a typical populist right party we would expect the very data that we’ve found: right wing views, hostility to immigration and antipathy to elite involvement. But when looking at averages and aggregate figures, it’s easy to overlook what the electoral consequence of such views might be. To whom might Reform appeal? And put another way, what could the party’s “ceiling” be at the 2026 Scottish Parliament election?
One way of investigating this is by looking at Propensity to Vote (PTV) scores, where respondents are asked to evaluate how likely it is they will vote for a party in future on a 0-10 scale from “Very unlikely” to “Very likely”. Typically, these are generalised questions not specific to any election, but on this occasion, we asked one third of the sample specifically about the devolved elections in 2026.
Figure 6 shows how respondents fell on this. 67% answered with 0, indicating they were very unlikely to cast a vote for Reform (for useful context, the figure citing they would never consider voting for the Conservatives in Scotland is 61%). However, 9% of respondents, around one-in-ten Scots, indicate the precise opposite, giving the party a 10, maximum likelihood of backing them in an election. In total, 79% responded below a 5 on this measure, suggesting the party might struggle to exceed 20% or so as things stand. It is worth emphasising, however, that a result anywhere close to that margin would not only be impressive for an organisation starting from essentially zero but it would also deliver both regional seats and, in a crowded candidate list, could take constituency seats.
The party could also be limited by the unpopularity of its leader Nigel Farage and his association with United States President Donald Trump. We asked respondents to rate different political leaders on a 0-10 scale from “Strongly disapprove” to “Strongly approve”, with averages shown in Figure 8.
The mean scores show that Nigel Farage is the least popular political leader in Scotland with a score of 2.3. The only leader with a lower score is US President Donald Trump (1.9). Of course, political leaders of all parties are often held in low regard but it is worth noting that Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay fares better at 3.1, which is almost a full point ahead of the UK Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch. At the most popular end is First Minister John Swinney (3.9) followed by Labour leaders Anas Sarwar (3.3) and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer (3.2). None of these scores crest the midpoint of the scale but in a field of dim evaluations the Reform UK leader fares worst.
One possible twist on this is the reaction of different party supporters to different leaders. Typically, we see that supporters like their own party leader and give much lower scores to all others. How much of an “own leader” advantage is bestowed by supporters varies, but Reform supporters are the most enthusiastic of any party about their own leader (7.8 out of 10)
In terms of evaluations of rival leaders, Scottish Labour, Lib Dem, SNP and Scottish Green supporters each give Farage the lowest scores of any UK party leader. This is not true for Conservative supporters who hold both the First Minister (1.8) and UK Prime Minister (1.9) in lower regard than their right-wing rival (2.7).
In our last section we examine the demographic and socio-economic profile of party supporters. Similarity in profiles could suggest obvious sources of support in future. If Green supporters and Reform supporters, as smaller parties, have similar demographic profiles of supporters, for example, that might identify sources of future of support.
| Reform | Con | Lib Dem | Labour | SNP | Green | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gender | Male | 63 | 39 | 36 | 47 | 57 | 45 |
| Female | 37 | 61 | 64 | 53 | 43 | 55 | |
| Age | 16-24 | 7 | 2 | 8 | 11 | 11 | 23 |
| 25-49 | 32 | 27 | 30 | 40 | 41 | 61 | |
| 50-64 | 31 | 26 | 20 | 24 | 27 | 13 | |
| 65+ | 30 | 44 | 42 | 26 | 21 | 3 | |
| Class | ABC1 | 46 | 58 | 60 | 62 | 51 | 68 |
| C2DE | 54 | 43 | 40 | 38 | 49 | 32 | |
| Birthplace | Scotland | 85 | 81 | 82 | 77 | 85 | 68 |
| rUK | 14 | 16 | 14 | 16 | 8 | 14 | |
| Outwith UK | 3 | 4 | 7 | 7 | 18 | ||
As we expected, however, the smaller parties, as anti-establishment parties, do not share socio-economic or demographic profiles. Four things stand out from this table. First, only two parties have more male supporters than female supporters, the SNP – reversing the Sturgeon-era figures when more women than men backed the party, which represents something of a return to normal for the party – and Reform, which earns the lowest support among women for any political party in Scotland.
Second, on age, the total collapse of support for the Conservatives is not uniformly true of right-wing parties, with Reform having similar profile on age as the Liberal Democrats. Reform voters do tend to be older, though, compared to the younger-skewed profile of current Labour and SNP supporters. The Scottish Greens stand out the most here though, drawing 84% of their support from those under 40, roughly twice as much as any other party.
Third, on social class, only Reform has a majority of C2DE voters, although SNP is about 50:50, far outstripping the C2DE profile of the traditionally working class party Labour.
Fourth, one might expect strong support for Reform among those born outside Scotland, particularly given the emphasis on traditional English grievances with the union. Instead, we find that on place of birth Reform’s profile is closest to the SNP and not dissimilar to the Liberal Democrats. The standout here are the Greens, with 18% of its support born outwith the UK, compared to low single digits for Reform. In short, Reform are more male- and C2DE- dominated than other parties but on age and place of birth have roughly similar profiles.
Conclusion
Reform’s rise in the polls, since its emergence as a serious electoral threat to the Conservatives last July, has gripped Holyrood for months. There is still a distance to go until the election next year, and while our latest data suggest the party might well have already attracted most of its potential support, it has done so without the tools the other parties have available to get their message out. What is clear is that the party has a distinct profile within Scottish political space, more obviously on ideological grounds than demographic ones, for now. We will return with more detailed analysis to inform the debate as it develops in the coming weeks and months.