Nigel Farage spoke to the biggest the party's public meeting so far in Scotland, however declined to speak with the press corps following the event. In his place, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor was left to responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding Farage.
Welcoming a New Recruit
Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman at a packed event of about 700 supporters at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. 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 Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.
Farage said he was “extremely pleased” to greet the new member. He described the switch as “a courageous and significant move”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
Farage addressed the rally after a turbulent week which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster after they quizzed him regarding a report into alleged racist and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. However, Farage dodged the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.
Questioned why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”
Challenged about if he thought Farage should apologise 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
The peer maintained that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, 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 Scotland's First Minister condemned Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer called them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
Growing Confidence
The rally, filled with an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who each paid £6 to attend, showcases the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.
While the SNP continues to lead in the polls, Reform UK has made substantial progress recently, securing 26% 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, polling up to 22%.
Declaring that party membership north of the border had increased fourfold in the past year to a running total of 12,000, a senior party official said he believed it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” in the Scottish Parliament.
Fighting Talk
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 coming campaign will be difficult”.
Despite not yet publishing a distinct policy platform for Scotland, representatives vowed the party would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.
Farage himself expressed his pleasure 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 “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Local Context
As the event was taking place, a few miles west in Falkirk town centre, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters were gathering for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
The organisers of the demonstrations said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. In an interview, Scotland's leader 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”.
However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
