Scots want a change to status quo – and Reform look set to benefit

I stood as the Scottish Greens candidate in the Glasgow ward of Maryhill in the north of the city.

I’m proud of my community-oriented campaign, which focused on issues such as waste, transport and green spaces, but the reality of electoral politics meant I was well aware that my chances of being elected as a councillor last Thursday night were slim to put it lightly, with the SNP tipped to win in Maryhill and Labour almost certain to see success in the other two Glasgow wards which were voting in by-elections that day.

The SNP fought hard, with First Minister John Swinney turning up to campaign for the party’s former national secretary Lorna Finn, but in the end the SNP’s vote share plummeted from 42.1% in 2022 to just 29.2%, with Labour managing to claim a full sweep of all three wards.

First Minister John Swinney joined the by-election campaign trail (Image: PA) While Labour won all three elections, this was not a successful night for them either. Their total vote share across the three wards together dropped quite significantly, with polling expert Professor John Curtice telling The National “these are poor results for Labour”.

In fact, of the four parties with electoral representation in Glasgow, the Scottish Greens were the only party to see our total vote share increase. Labour, the SNP and Tories all saw their vote share drop at best, or plummet at worst. This was a good result for the Greens after a hard-fought campaign – although I’m also under no illusions as to who the real winners on Thursday night were in Glasgow.

It wasn’t the Greens, nor was it Labour, despite their three newly elected councillors.

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No, the real winners of these by-elections was Reform UK, who amassed huge support and soared into third place in all three wards, despite having never contested a local election in the city before. These results put Nigel Farage’s party in prime position to elect MSPs and councillors in Glasgow and across Scotland in the 2026 and 2027 elections.

The simple fact is, Scotland’s communities are sick and tired of the status quo which is leaving them poorer and poorer and their lives getting worse. I had so many conversations on the doors in Maryhill with people who lamented that they’re paying more and more for less and less – a sentiment I feel intrinsically.

Austerity governments in Westminster, wearing ties of blue or red, have decimated public services, while the SNP Government in Holyrood has passed on cuts time and again to our vital services in Scotland, not least our local authorities who collect our bins, pave our roads and educate our country’s children.

People are crying out for change. They’ve tried voting SNP and they’ve tried voting Labour, but alas change has not been forthcoming.

Nigel Farage leads the right-wing populist party Reform UKIn these by-elections in Glasgow, and in others across the country, voters have rejected the parties they see as being part of the establishment, and have either stayed at home or voted Reform, wishing to give Farage’s party a chance at delivering the change it promises.

Of course, Reform UK are not an anti-establishment party. They’re about as establishment as you can get, led by privately educated investment bankers, property developers and multi-millionaires whose only ploy is to scapegoat society’s most vulnerable so they can help themselves and their pals get richer while the poor keep getting poorer.

A real anti-establishment political party would be talking about wealth redistribution from the wealthy elite. They’d be talking about radical investment in public services; about genuine, tangible ways to make the lives of working-class people better. They’d recognise that the enemy of the working class arrives in our country by private jet, not by small dinghy. These are the politics that the Scottish Greens must embrace at our forefront.

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The lack of decline in the Green vote last week shows that many people opposed to the current status quo still find hope in voting Green, but I won’t pretend that I wasn’t dismayed at a fair few doors during my campaign, with people disenamoured by the Greens, starting to see us as part of the same cosy managerial establishment as the SNP and Labour.

Of all the voters I spoke to on the doors who brought up the Bute House Agreement (BHA), not one did so positively, and voters recognised the real damage that SNP cuts to our local services have done to their communities – cuts passed through with the support of the Greens during and prior to the BHA.

While Green councillors in Glasgow’s city chambers have successfully built consensus for radical pilots such as universal basic income and free public transport – changes which would dramatically improve the lives of every Glaswegian – the lack of funding or ambition from Holyrood has made such measures impossible to implement.

Rather than make full use of its devolved revenue-raising powers, the Scottish Parliament has consistently chosen managed decline instead, and regrettably the Greens are seen as being complicit.

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The rise of Reform UK conclusively shows that voters are desperate for an alternative to the status quo.

Reform have successfully mobilised support around their false promises, and it’s up to all parties of the left to combat that – but none more so than the Greens, who are fast approaching a crossroads in our party’s history.

No longer tied to an unpopular SNP Government, my party has a choice. We could take the route of continuing the managerial approach of the SNP and Labour, tinkering around the edges and focussing on professionalism while managing the decline of our communities.

Or, we could fully embrace the radical solutions we know are the only chance of not just improving the lives of the working classes, but of defeating the far-right – and wear this radical approach with our chest.

With local government and Holyrood elections in 2026 and 2027 fast on the horizon, the Greens have got a choice to make – and I know which route I’d prefer.