Clause 107

Reform UK are trying to criminalise the use of Gaelic and Scots election materials.

Reports that Reform UK have put forward an amendment to Labour’s new elections Bill that would see candidates who use the Irish language, Scots, Scottish Gaelic and Cornish face prison time of up to six months may seem absurd. But Reform is constantly hovering between the deeply threatening and the utterly ridiculous.

The New Clause 107 to the Representation of the People Bill was tabled by Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice and co-signed by every sitting Reform MP would require all election publications material to be “in the English language or the Welsh language” only.

Ironically, the The Representation of the People Bill, if voted through, would allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote at the next general election. The legislation is also aimed to tighten rules around political donations, protect against foreign interference, and move towards automatic voter registration.

The proposals are the ultimate consequence of the sort of sneering Muscular Unionism developed under the Tories (remember Penny Mordaunt tweeting out “Important continuity in the territorial offices. Congratulations to all three”) and it’s the high-point of Reform connecting with core supporters in the Shires and cringe-infested recesses of Unionist Scotland. But it’s also deeply Trumpian. The idea of the singularity, that is that the entire society must bend to the will of the one-dimensional and that any variant is a threat. The singularity is white, male, Christian, heterosexual, neurotypical and English-speaking. This is the default world. Diversity is, in this world, by definition bad. Trump’s war on language is explicitly political [Lost Words].

Of course the idea of criminalising the use of Gaelic is also deeply colonial.

The SNP’s Maree Todd said: “This despicable anti-Scottish amendment is deeply telling – Reform wants to see any trace of our native languages removed from Scottish politics.”

“Not content with plans to cut our MSPs and ‘review’ the powers of Holyrood, (Reform leader Nigel) Farage and his cronies want to threaten jail time upon anyone in Scotland who publishes political materials in Scots or Gaelic. We know Reform could not care less about Scotland, but this move is all too reminiscent of the brutal anti-Gaelic laws of the Highland Clearances.”

Of course Reform’s language fascism is probably aimed at ethnic communities, after their by-election loss in Gorton and Denton in which they poured derision on the Greens for publishing a leaflet in Urdu.

But the impact is linguistic colonialism and an effort to impose a Unionist language template. There are four legislatures in the United Kingdom. There are many languages both indigenous and not. All should be welcome as you attempt to communicate across a diverse society during an election.

Reform’s language fascism will only backfire massively on them in a week when they have already been humiliated.