We can stop racist Reform UK

By Héctor Sierra, Katy Highet, Rania Obead, Davena Rankin, Talat Ahmed & Zamard Zahid (organisers of Stop Reform summit).

The electoral advances made by Reform UK, a racist far-right party, in the English elections in May have intensified discussion about how to oppose this threat. At the end of May, Stand Up to Racism Scotland is hosting an organising summit against Reform UK and the far-right, bringing activists together to build the fight against racism and fascism. Organisers of the summit outline below why this event matters. We urge all readers to participate and to help build resistance to Reform UK.

Faced with the threat of Reform, we are seeing a host of dead-end approaches.

Without a doubt, the worst of these is the despicable accommodation to racist ideas being embraced by Keir Starmer and many Labour politicians. Labour are boasting record-breaking deportations and adopting a tougher stance to migration in a bid to regain votes from Reform. The experience of Labour-type parties who have pursued this path elsewhere has shown time and again that compromising with racism doesn’t stop the far-right. Instead, it helps normalise and legitimise their ideas and ultimately boosts their arguments and electoral fortunes.

In Scotland, many people recognise the dangers of Reform UK, but some argue that it is largely an English phenomenon. This same argument was common in the wake of the Islamophobic pogroms and riots in the summer last year, even as far-right groups organised racist protests across Scotland. Some argue that the response to the increasing likelihood of Reform UK forming the next Westminster government is to renew calls for Scottish independence. But this dangerously understates the extent to which Reform UK is growing roots within Scotland. Reform has 10,000 members here, have come third in a number of by-elections, and polls suggest that at next year’s Holyrood parliamentary election Reform could win as much as 10-15 seats, with an outlier survey this week suggesting as many as 21.

John Swinney, refreshingly, doesn’t pander to the far-right, and openly says that Reform is racist. But his ‘summit of leaders on respect and democracy’ in April took an equally misguided approach. Reform feeds off the racist ‘hostile environment’ that has been fostered by mainstream politicians for many years, but it also taps into the widespread anger in society after decades of failing policies, declining living standards and decomposition of the welfare state. Swinney’s approach amounts to presenting the same politicians and parties who have been responsible for overseeing this societal decline as the barrier to the far-right. Rather than acting as a ‘buffer’, this approach will strengthen Reform’s fake claims to be an ‘anti-establishment’ alternative.

Within the left, there is an argument that to confront Reform, the key question is to expose their pro-business, anti-trade union policies. This is important, but not enough, and in these arguments opposing Reform’s racism is seen, at best, as an awkward third-rank issue – or, at worst, even counter-productive. Underlying this approach is a belief that working-class people are wedded to racist ideas. But the reality is far more complex. Huge numbers of working-class people have repeatedly demonstrated their opposition to the far-right – as we saw in September last year, when over 5,000 attended the counter-protest against the Glasgow Cabbie’s hateful rally. From solidarity with Palestine through supporting strikes to defending trans rights, working-class people in Scotland have come out in their hundreds and their thousands to fight for progressive issues. The fightback to defend jobs and demand better wages, conditions and public services that many want to see and that we need is not possible if we allow racism to infect workplaces, communities and schools across Scotland.

Racism is not a side issue, it’s absolutely central to the project of Reform’s leadership. As a party headed up by millionaires who claim to stand for the ‘ordinary man’, Reform’s approach relies upon deflecting anger in society away from those at the top onto those at the bottom – refugees, migrants, the Muslim community and other ethnic minorities. Busting the myths about refugees and asylum seekers, tackling Islamophobic arguments, and dispelling the lies that migration is behind the crisis in housing, jobs or the NHS, is absolutely essential.

What do we need, then? Firstly, our argument is for mass anti-racist campaigning, involving refugee rights organisations, trade union members in their workplaces, campaigners rooted in their communities, educators, faith leaders, cultural figures and many more. This is the unity and action we want to forge – a very different kind from the one displayed at Swinney’s event.

Secondly, we are against fatalism. We say there’s nothing inevitable about Reform becoming a major force shaping Scottish politics, and that every response we make matters. When they held their first Scotland conference in Perth in November – provocatively on St Andrew’s Day, a date long marked by the trade union movement with an anti-racism march and rally – hundreds protested, sang and danced outside the venue. In by-elections from Glasgow through West Lothian to Glenrothes, thousands of leaflets have been distributed exposing the racist and fraudulent nature of Reform and its candidates. Every leaflet we distribute, every conversation we have, every mind we change will matter. It will matter if Farage’s first visit to Scotland in over a decade is met with mass resistance, or if Refugee Festival Scotland in June is marked by thousands taking to the streets.

Thirdly, with Reform standing across Scotland in next year’s May election, anti-racist organising needs to happen on a much vaster scale than it has so far. Past experience shows this is possible – and that it works. Mass anti-fascist and anti-racist campaigning organised by the likes of the Anti-Nazi League turned the tide against the fascist National Front in the 70s after a period of rapid growth. The same approach undermined the fortunes of the nazi British National Party. Reform is undoubtedly different: it’s not a fascist party, and it has a much broader appeal. But this makes the approach of mass activity and patient argument even more important, not less.

Fourthly, we don’t claim that anti-racist campaigning by itself will undercut Reform’s appeal. More than this is undoubtedly needed. What we do claim is that anti-racism is one of the key components of the fightback against the far-right, and that’s what this summit aims to develop. Join us at the Stop Reform summit to discuss how we can build mass resistance to Reform, and be part of the fightback.

Book your place for the summit here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/stop-reform-2026-organising-against-racism-and-fascism-in-scotland-tickets-1226445123379