Racism behind rise in support for Reform, says Swinney

Racism is partly behind rising support for Reform UK in Scotland, John Swinney has said.

The first minister said those with "fundamentally racist views" were backing Nigel Farage's party and claimed increased polling support for Reform was a product of racism and anger.

"There will be some views in there [among Reform supporters] that will be intolerant of people from other countries and other races – racist views – which I don't hold," Swinney told the BBC's Scotcast podcast.

"There's also a lot of people in there who are angry and they're fed up with the state of our society and our community, and I take some responsibility for that as first minister."

Reform was excluded from a political summit organised by the first minister last year to discuss the threat of the far right over its immigration policies.

The party branded the summit "anti-democratic" and denied being far right.

In a wide-ranging interview, Swinney also said there was no "rational" argument against immigration.

"We have a shortage of working-age population in Scotland," he said.

"I can't speak to a single sector in Scotland that doesn't say to me: we're short of people.

"That's the rational argument for immigration and I don't see the rational argument against it but there will be people who are against immigration because they hold racist views."

During a Q&A at Reform UK Scotland's manifesto launch on Thursday, leader Nigel Farage was asked by newspaper journalist David Walker what he thought about Swinney's claim of Reform UK voters being racist.

The Westminster MP suggested that the "racist" card did not work anymore.

He said: "The attempt, really since [Tony] Blair's time, to shut down any rational debate about immigration, population explosion, or culture, the attempt to shut it down by screaming racist, do you know what, it doesn't work anymore. No one is listening."

Swinney was speaking to the BBC podcast in the latest in a series of interviews with party leaders ahead of May's Holyrood election.

Interviews with Gillian Mackay of the Scottish Greens, Reform UK's Malcolm Offord, Alex Cole-Hamilton of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, Scottish Labour's Anas Sarwar and Russell Findlay of the Scottish Conservatives will also be published in March.