Once dismissed as fringe, Reform UK is now surging in Scotland — fuelled by anger, betrayal, and a political class that stopped listening, says Herald columnist and feature writer Kevin McKenna

A poll last week delivered the unthinkable: a huge surge in support for Reform UK ahead of next year’s Holyrood election which would make them Scotland’s official opposition.

In March, 2019 I felt the first ripples of an oncoming tsunami which would engulf Britain’s left. The Observer had commissioned me to write a dispatch from Sunderland where Nigel Farage was beginning a 270-mile sojourn to Westminster.

This pilgrimage would proceed beneath the banner of his Brexit party, which would soon become Reform UK. A cheery – if sodden - cohort of 300 souls had gathered to walk with Mr Farage as he pledged to save Brexit from the clutches of the Islington mafia. I’d joined them to discover for myself the true nature of his support.

I’d expected them largely to be disaffected Tories, seeing in Mr Farage perhaps a throwback to when England ruled the waves and brooked no nonsense from any upstart foreign popinjays seeking to have a nibble at their empire, especially those perfidious frenchies. I’d also braced myself for some belligerent exchanges with Union Jack-waving National Front types proclaiming English racial superiority.

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What I found instead troubled me deeply. Most of them were from a Labour and Trade Union background. What had brought them out on this bitterly cold Saturday morning to walk........

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