RECENT MEDIA COVERAGE has attempted to make political capital out of the claim that around 40 per cent of Reform Scotland candidates were previously members of the Conservative Party. As in England, many of the party’s most prominent figures in Scotland – including its leader Malcolm Offord, MSP Graham Simpson, and councillors such as Thomas Kerr and Ross Lambie — are former Conservatives.
The implication is meant to be obvious: that Reform is somehow less authentic or less new because some of its candidates have a political past.
That argument is fundamentally flawed. This is not a weakness – it is exactly what one would expect.
People who care about politics and want to change things do not materialise out of thin air when a new party is formed. The normal route into public life is through existing political structures.
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