Nigel Farage addressed the biggest the party's rally held in Scotland to date, but declined to speak with local journalists afterwards. Instead, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor took on the task of field questions on claims of discriminatory behaviour and antisemitism surrounding Farage.
A High-Profile Defection
Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman at a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and was until recently the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for the party in next May’s Holyrood elections.
Farage said he was “delighted” to welcome the new member. He described the switch as “a courageous and significant move”.
Dodging the Press
The Reform leader spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster after they quizzed him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. But, Farage dodged a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event.
Questioned why Farage did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Challenged about if he thought Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks towards Jewish pupils, Offord said: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Insisting on Fitness
Offord insisted that the leader is “ethically suitable” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. During his speech, the leader had reiterated on previous comments about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who are not native English speakers by posing the question to the crowd: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
While the first minister, John Swinney condemned the initial comments as “racist”, and Keir Starmer called them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.
A Party on the Rise
The event, filled with an lively and passionate audience of predominantly older, white male backers who bought tickets for the event, showcases the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.
While the SNP continues to lead in the polls, Reform UK has made substantial progress in the past year, achieving a quarter of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. Following Scottish Labour's decline, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place in recent months, polling up to 22%.
Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled over the last twelve months to a running total of 12,000, a senior party official stated his belief it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, which would place Reform in “a powerful situation” in the Scottish Parliament.
Campaign Rhetoric
Thomas Kerr, a local representative for the party, elicited loud cheers as he referred to the leader as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He told supporters to “man the barricades as we “challenge the ruling class”, cautioning that “the next five months will be tough”.
Despite not yet publishing a distinct policy platform for Scotland, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.
The leader personally underlined his delight at Reform's rise as a significant player in the political scene in Scotland over the past 12 months, confessing to supporters that he was once told he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.
Local Context
Meanwhile, a few miles west in Falkirk town centre, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering for a now-regular weekly standoff outside a local hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.
A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. Speaking previously, First Minister John Swinney cautioned that the tactic of the far-right is to apportion the blame … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.
He also made a clear distinction between those who hold far-right views and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
