Luke Graham: Reform cannot be trusted with the Union

Luke Graham was the Conservative Member of Parliament for Ochil and Perthshire South from 2017 to 2019, the candidate in Perth and Kinross-shire in 2024, and a former head of the Downing Street Union Unit.

A few weeks ago, political history was made when Labour lost the Caerphilly by-election.

Weeks of speculation about whether this would be Reform’s “big breakthrough” in Wales, filled column inches of every publication meanwhile Plaid Cymru (PC) started to emerge as the next leading party of Wales. The result – 47.4 per cent vote share for PC and Reform over ten percentage points behind on 36 per cent, with the once dominant Labour languishing on 11 percent.

PC attribute their victory to a strong ground game, the fall of Labour and, most notably, the coalescing of an anti-Reform vote behind PC as the leading competitor in the seat. Although this movement was picked up by the media – those paying the most attention was PC themselves and the SNP.

After almost 20 years, the SNP are desperate to stay in power and are looking for any coalition that will enable them to do so. Thanks to Reform they might just have found a way.

The current polls have Reform sweeping to power at the next General Election, but when you consider only around 100 of those seats (less than a third required for a majority) are projected to have >40 per cent vote share, suddenly the effectiveness of a “stop Reform” campaign is apparent.

When considering this in the context of next May’s Senedd and Holyrood elections there is even greater danger for us as Conservatives over and above our projected seat losses – nationalist victories.

In fact, if the Caerphilly voter alliance can be repeated elsewhere in Wales and Scotland, we will be left with sizeable Reform representation, limited Conservative and Labour presence and nationalist parties in government (or leading coalitions) in Wales and Scotland in addition to the current Sinn Fein-led administration in Northern Ireland. 3 parts of the UK led by separatists, meanwhile England itself will be divided by Reform, a buoyed Labour party through tactical voting and a contained Conservative and ineffective Liberal Democrat parties. In short, the Union of the UK will be in serious trouble.

PC and the SNP know this – they meet regularly, support each other through social media networks and perpetuate the same divisive (and often inaccurate nationalist bile) over X, Facebook and wherever else they can access. And you can see this in their political positioning over the past few weeks, with both PC and SNP taking predominantly more left-wing positions to “out left” Labour, while trying to show themselves as the only parties to “stop Nigel Farage and the rise of Reform”.

As Caerphilly proves, this message can work and because of our media and the fact that people take one election at a time, a nationalist alliance may well win.

We have to stop this.

Many commentators and politicians who haven’t faced a nationalist party in election think parties such as PC and the SNP are benign, centre-left parties of protest, kind of like the Liberal Democrats of the North and West.

They are not.

Not only have they proven themselves to be ineffective in administration – see SNP record on education, health, crime, drug deaths over almost 20 years – they also maliciously attempt to manipulate culture. Charities and cultural organisations are co-opted through funding and patronage in a way that simply isn’t possible via Westminster. Meanwhile, education and civic awards are twisted to champion nationalism, and remove Britishness and discourage UK-wide thinking.

The UK is a unique state – a country of nations (and regions) all with proud traditions, colloquialisms, and sports teams. We need to continually reinforce the economic, social and cultural bonds that tie us together through policy, but more importantly through joint action and the sharing of benefits, as we have done in the past, such as with the launching of the NHS, which although now has parts that are operationally devolved, is still very much a British endeavour.

If the SNP and PC are successful next May, we will experience the most comprehensive and sustained attack on the UK we have seen since devolution began. Each devolved administration will be mobilised to build the case to break up the UK, and as we know from over a decade of independence-polling, the more it is talked about, the more the momentum builds behind the question.

Reform cannot be trusted with the Union; it must be the Conservative & Unionist Party that blocks the SNP and PC from government.