REFORM UK have spent thousands of pounds pushing a “blatantly racist” political advert in Scotland even as a media storm raged around it, The National can reveal.
Last week, Nigel Farage’s party was accused of “not so much a dog whistle as a foghorn” after it was found to have promoted an advert on Facebook and Instagram which claimed Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar would “prioritise the Pakistani community”.
The advert falsely attributed the quote to Sarwar, and included selected clips from a video which had been spread by far- and alt-right agitators on social media the previous month in a bid to claim that Europe was under threat from “multiculturalism” and mass immigration, specifically of Muslims.
Farage doubled-down on the advert on Tuesday, playing it at a press conference in London and claiming that Sarwar had “introduced sectarianism into Scottish politics”.
Now, The National can reveal that Reform UK have also doubled-down on the advert financially, spending thousands of pounds on promotion even after it was described as racist.
Last week, Meta’s ad library stated that Farage’s party had spent between £8000-£9000 pushing their advert to voters in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, where a Holyrood by-election will be held on June 5. Now, the total spend is listed as between £10,000 and £15,000.
Impressions have also risen significantly. Last week, Meta listed an estimated audience size of 100,000-500,000, with impressions (the number of times the advert had been viewed on people’s screens) listed at between 450,000-500,000.
Now, while the estimated audience size remains the same (given the targeting of the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse constituency) the number of impressions has risen to between 700,000-800,000.
On Wednesday, Scottish Labour leader Sarwar called Farage a “pathetic, poisonous little man who wants to use divisive rhetoric to spread fear and division for his own political gain”.
Sarwar said: "For anyone that knows the history of Scotland and the history of the west of Scotland, for Nigel Farage to claim that a guy that was born in 1983 brought sectarianism to Scotland demonstrates how little he knows."
The Labour MSP further challenged the Reform UK MP to a debate at “any time, any place”, adding: “He can challenge me on my views, I'll challenge him on his, and I am confident that the people of Scotland will reject him.”
He said the Clacton MP did not know about, or care for, the people in the area, saying Farage "thinks Hamilton is some kind of show on the West End of London".
Reform UK are not expected to be able to win the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election, but some pollsters have projected that they could push Labour into third place, which would send shockwaves through Scottish politics.
Labour have been ramping up their attacks on Farage in a bid to prevent voters switching to Reform.
