The Reform UK figurehead addressed the largest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, but declined to speak with the press corps afterwards. In his place, newly defected member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord was left to responding to queries on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to the party leader.
Welcoming a New Recruit
Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor at a sold-out rally 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 treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for the party in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
Farage said he was “delighted” to welcome the new member. He described the switch as “a brave and historic act”.
Dodging the Press
Farage addressed the rally following a difficult period which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster after they quizzed him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. However, the leader avoided a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event.
Questioned why Farage did not make himself available to address growing claims concerning his history, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Challenged about whether he believed 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.”
Insisting on Fitness
Offord insisted that the leader is “morally fit” to be prime minister and denied he was employing coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, Farage had doubled down on previous comments about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who are not native English speakers by posing the question to the crowd: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”
Although Scotland's First Minister criticised Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and Keir Starmer called them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that “voters are discussing”.
Growing Confidence
The rally, 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 before next May’s elections.
While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has gained significant ground in the past year, achieving a quarter of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place lately, with support reaching over a fifth.
Declaring that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled 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 very strong position” in the Scottish Parliament.
Campaign Rhetoric
Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He told supporters 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, speakers from the north-east pledged Reform would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.
The leader personally expressed his pleasure at the party’s emergence as a force in the political scene in Scotland in the last year, admitting to the audience that in previous years he had been warned he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.
Protests Nearby
Meanwhile, a few miles west in Falkirk town centre, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering for what have become regular weekly confrontations outside a local hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.
A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. Speaking previously, First Minister John Swinney cautioned that the tactic of the far-right is to assign responsibility … to new arrivals and I think that is the root of the poison”.
He also made a clear distinction between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.
