Reform UK criticised for making ‘false claims’ using “racially coded language”

Reform announced proposals it claims would “put Scots first” in social housing allocations. The party alleges that “swathes” of illegal migrants are being given priority and says it would close what it calls a “homeless loophole”, detain people without status in Home Office centres, and charge council tax to overseas students to fund housebuilding.

The framing is blunt and accusatory. The claims are wrong.

Asylum seekers and people without status are not on mainstream social housing lists. They are housed separately under Home Office contracts. They do not compete with local families. They are not prioritised. Responsibility sits with Westminster, not councils or housing associations. The suggestion that migrants are displacing local people from social homes has no factual basis.

Speaking to The National, Robina Qureshi stated:

“This proposal is nothing more than a political distraction, designed to blame people of colour using racially coded language and to play on prejudice. Those of Irish origin will surely remember what it is like to be scapegoated in exactly this way.

Those who play the politics of division have no answers for ordinary hard working people. They peddle hate and set neighbour against neighbour. They offer zero solutions.

A better response would be a clear, costed social housebuilding programme across Scotland, led by the Scottish Government and targeted at those in the greatest housing need.

They also do not have a clue about the system they are criticising. Asylum seekers and people without status are categorically not on mainstream social housing lists. Responsibility for them is reserved to Westminster. They are housed separately under Home Office contracts. They are not competing with local families for social housing and they are not being prioritised. That claim is simply false.

Blaming immigrants does not create a single additional home. It misleads people and lowers the level of debate. Scotland deserves better. If we want shorter waiting lists in Glasgow and across Scotland, the answer is to build more social homes, not to manufacture racial division to win votes."

Reform, led nationally by Nigel Farage, argues that Scotland has become a “magnet” for illegal migration and says only its policies will restore order. The rhetoric positions migrants as the cause of housing shortages.

The material reality is different. Scotland’s shortage stems from decades of underinvestment in public housebuilding, rising rents, and the long-term erosion of social stock. No amount of blaming refugees produces homes. Only construction, funding, and planning do that.

Housing policy built on resentment manufactures conflict between neighbours while leaving the structural problem intact. A serious programme would expand supply, protect tenants, and prioritise those in greatest need without resorting to racialised myths.