As Scotland prepares to elect a new parliament on 7 May, immigration is dominating the political discourse as never before. Reform UK, a party whose top three policies are “stop the boats”, “secure and defend our borders” and “deport illegal migrants” is now polling in second place behind the SNP in many recent surveys. Its success here seems illogical. Immigration, after all, is not devolved to the Scottish parliament. But as I’ve learned from my experience as an immigrant in Scotland, Holyrood’s position on immigration matters.
In Westminster, the Labour government’s approach to Reform’s toxic, distorted narrative on immigration has been not to challenge it but instead to accept it as the starting point for its own hardline anti-immigrant agenda. If this thinking were to infect Holyrood, it would be disastrous for Scotland.
