Nigel Farage addressed the largest the party's public meeting held in Scotland to date, but declined to speak with the press corps afterwards. In his place, recently switched peer Malcolm Offord was left to responding to queries on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding Farage.
Welcoming a New Recruit
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor during a packed event of about 700 supporters at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland under the last government and most recently served as the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, stated his plan to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to become a candidate for Reform UK 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
Farage spoke to the crowd following a difficult period which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC for questioning him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and remarks from his teenage years. But, Farage dodged a planned media briefing post-rally.
Questioned why Farage did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, the new recruit responded: “That is a question for him to answer.”
Challenged about if he thought an apology was necessary for his alleged remarks about Jewish students, Offord said: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”
Defending the Leader
The peer maintained that the leader is “ethically suitable” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about pupils in Glasgow who are not native English speakers by asking the rally: “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 labeled them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.
Growing Confidence
The rally, attended by an lively and passionate audience of predominantly older, white male backers who bought tickets for the event, showcases the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.
While the SNP continues to lead in the polls, Reform UK has gained significant ground in the past year, achieving a quarter of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. Following Scottish Labour's decline, the party has often relegated it to third in recent months, with support reaching over a fifth.
Declaring that Reform UK membership in Scotland had increased fourfold over the last twelve months to 12,000 members, a senior party official stated his belief it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” in the Scottish Parliament.
Campaign Rhetoric
Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “the future PM of the UK”. He instructed the crowd to “man the barricades as we “challenge the ruling class”, warning that “the next five months will be tough”.
Although the party has yet to produce 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 the party’s emergence as a force in Scottish politics in the last year, confessing to supporters that in previous years he had been warned he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.
Protests Nearby
As the event was taking place, a few miles west in the heart of Falkirk, demonstrators with opposing views assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. In an interview, First Minister John Swinney cautioned that the tactic of the far-right is to apportion the blame … 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 “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
