REFORM UK recorded their highest level of support in a Scottish poll last week.
Analysis of the Survation poll for Quantum Communications puts Reform on 14 seats if the results were replicated in next year’s Holyrood election – which would send shockwaves around Scottish politics.
But there was also a curious detail.
Nigel Farage’s strongest support on the regional list vote was among those aged 16 to 24, which follows a trend seen with right-wing populist parties across Europe.
But are young Scots actually flocking to Reform?
Pollsters – including professor John Curtice – have urged some caution with this particular poll given the small sample size of 72 in that demographic, instead suggesting that GB-wide polls indicate that older voters are more enticed by Farage's party.
Professor Nicola McEwen, director of the Centre for Public Policy at the University of Glasgow, also said the trend is “not unique to Scotland”.
“Across the UK and Europe, far-right parties today appear able to capture support from young people to levels normally associated with the far left,” she said.
Many have pinpointed the impact of social media on young people and Reform UK’s savvy TikTok presence as factors.
But the Sunday National spoke with Dr Dan Evans – a sociologist at Swansea University and author of A Nation Of Shopkeepers: The Unstoppable Rise Of The Petty Bourgeoisie – who said it goes deeper than that.
"I think what is significant in Scotland is that the SNP have moved from like an insurgent force to obviously becoming part of the establishment, the party of government,” he said.
"It seems the independence movement has ground to a halt. So, the radical left or progressive outlets or options are dead in the water and Reform have now just hoovered up because they do appear or present themselves as insurgent.”
He added that from a sociological perspective, young people are also just “pissed off”.
“Let's face it, young people's futures have been cancelled. They're having an absolutely terrible time of things – if you're a young graduate or a young person trying to make your way and be socially upwardly mobile,” he said.
“None of them are going to be able to get a house unless their parents help. They have had all the problems with Covid, like not having a proper school experience and a lot of them didn't have a proper university experience.”
Evans added: “They're having a really tough time and the anxieties they're feeling are real. And politically there's no progressive alternative for them.
“In terms of the superstructure, in terms of the culture that young people are exposed to online, I think that stuff is often overstated, but it obviously does have some impact in that they're spending a lot more time online – all these sorts of alt-right influences.
“But, primarily, a lot of this stuff often emerges from young people just being pissed off.”
Professor Michael Higgins at the University of Strathclyde thinks that Reform UK have managed to “tap into a mood which is prevailing on social media”.
“Much of it, for example, around toxic masculinity and the popularity of figures such as Elon Musk and the sustained popularity, particularly among the young, of Donald Trump and his particular style,” the media and politics expert told the Sunday National.
“Reform probably map more easily on to those sorts of sentiments than other parties do.”
He added, however, that he also believes this role is a more subtle one.
More important, Higgins said, is young voters feeling disenchanted.
“These are first or second-time voters. And I think many of them have a disenchantment with the political parties more broadly and probably see Reform as more of a renegade option,” the professor said.
He expressed doubts as to whether that will actually transfer to votes come an election but added that Reform seem to have managed to be, for many, the “anti-political vote”.
Higgins also said the messaging of the main parties isn't getting to that age group.
He added: “I don't actually think the parties are very good at articulating what particular interest this age group should have in politics more broadly.”
