JIM SPENCE: Lack of honest debate about immigration has opened door for Nigel Farage

Will the quintessential English establishment figure Nigel Farage make any impact in Scotland in Thursday’s General Election?

As France and other countries vote in increasing numbers for what is described as the far right, might Farage’s Reform Party, labelled as such by some commentators, find any succour here?

The questions he’s been posing on immigration have sown division and alarm, but they are arguably as relevant here as anywhere else in the UK.

My old BBC colleague Brian Taylor told the Call Kaye phone-in programme we in Scotland were “kidding” ourselves if we believed we were any more welcoming to immigrants and refugees than elsewhere in the UK.

Indeed, frequent social attitude surveys show our views on a host of issues are much the same as folk in Newcastle or Northampton.

That cosy notion of Scottish exceptionalism towards newcomers may be because we haven’t had anything like the numbers of refugees and immigrants that parts of England have welcomed.

‘Lack of open and honest debate’

Our views may be skewed by our different experiences in terms of the impact and effect on communities on everything from housing to health to education.

I see no reason why Scots would be any less concerned about the impact of unchecked immigration, real or imagined, than any other UK citizen when it comes to potential effects on the quality or delivery of our public services which are under significant strain after years of useless Conservative UK Government, and incompetent Scottish Government in Holyrood.

An unpalatable truth for some people is Farage, appealing to many who are of a completely different social milieu and background to him as a privately educated former commodities trader, is asking questions those same people on buses, in pubs, shops, and workplaces have been muttering under their breaths for a long time, for fear of being labelled racists or bigots.

Labelling folk racist because they wonder how many refugees or immigrants we should take may be backfiring.

Our lack of honest open debate about an issue which isn’t going away any time soon, as to how and to whom we allocate resources, and whether we want an open doors policy or limited numbers on immigration, as Farage proposes, has allowed him to present himself as a champion for ordinary folk reluctant to express their concerns.

And rather uncomfortably for some who wish to inject skin tone into the debate, there are suggestions four out of ten ethnic minorities also believe immigration is too high.

People are asking whether some arrivals are being given housing, health, and education benefits, while some British citizens struggle to access them, and if so, why?

These questions are increasingly being posed by more middle of the road folk, and the infantile political response of labelling such questioners as right wing is now passé.

Farage has skilfully tapped into the fact some people struggling to get dental and doctors appointments, or housing, or school places for kids, feel they’ve had their generosity of spirit pushed too far, and are now equating their problems with the sheer volume of numbers entering the country both as immigrants and refugees.

‘Reform performance will tell us a lot about ourselves’

More and more folk are spending their hard-earned wages and savings privately on dental work, hearing aids and even things like having their ears syringed as the health service struggles to meet their needs.

Meanwhile, Farage is labelled as a populist by a cohort of the virtue signalling left, many of whom are as well-heeled and from the same wealthy and privately educated establishment backgrounds as him.

Like him or loathe him, he’s mined into a wellspring of concern among many citizens and grasped that the good nature and essential decency of a lot of ordinary people is hardening into anger, as they ask just how broad their shoulders are expected to be.

How his party performs in Scotland on Thursday will tell us a lot about ourselves and whether we’re as different from our neighbours over the border, as we are often fond of claiming.

It looks like Thursday will be a grim day for the SNP but if they rally and do better than predicted then they’ll have to soon face up to the questions which Farage and Reform have posed.

They’re in favour of more immigration to Scotland – and those many of us who can trace our forebears to Ireland can hardly be hypocrites about that – but they’ll need to nail down some serious answers to a debate which Farage has brought firmly into the public domain.