Nigel Farage spoke to the largest the party's rally so far in Scotland, but avoided engaging with local journalists following the event. In his place, newly defected member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord was left to field questions on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to Farage.
A High-Profile Defection
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman during a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland under the last government and most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to stand for the party in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
Farage said he was “extremely pleased” to greet the new member. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
The Reform leader addressed the rally following a difficult period which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him about an investigation into alleged racist and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. However, the leader avoided the expected press huddle post-rally.
Questioned why Farage was not available to address growing claims concerning his history, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Challenged about if he thought an apology was necessary for the comments he is said to have made towards Jewish pupils, Offord said: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Defending the Leader
Offord insisted that the leader is “morally fit” to be the country's leader and rejected claims of coded political messaging. During his speech, the leader had reiterated on his remarks about pupils in Glasgow who speak English as a second language by posing the question to the crowd: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
Although Scotland's First Minister condemned Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and Keir Starmer called them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.
Growing Confidence
The event, filled with an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who bought tickets for the event, highlights the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.
While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has gained significant ground 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 party membership north of the border had quadrupled over the last twelve months to 12,000 members, the party chair, David Bull stated his belief it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.
Fighting Talk
Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He instructed the crowd to “prepare for a fight” as we take on the political establishment”, cautioning that “the next five months will be tough”.
Despite not yet publishing a distinct policy platform for Scotland, speakers from the north-east pledged Reform would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.
The leader personally expressed his pleasure at Reform's rise as a significant player in the political scene in Scotland in the last year, confessing to supporters that in previous years he had been warned he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Protests Nearby
As the event was taking place, a few miles west in Falkirk town centre, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. Speaking previously, First Minister John Swinney warned that the tactic of the far-right is to assign responsibility … to new arrivals 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 “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or community safety.
