Nigel Farage addressed the biggest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, but avoided engaging with the press corps following the event. In his place, newly defected member of the House of Lords the former Conservative donor was left to responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding the party leader.
Welcoming a New Recruit
The leader presented the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman at a packed event of about 700 attendees at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. The businessman, who worked as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration 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 stand for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.
The leader stated he was “delighted” to welcome Offord to the party. He described the switch as “a brave and historic act”.
Dodging the Press
Farage spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC for questioning him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and remarks as a youth. But, Farage dodged the expected press huddle post-rally.
When asked why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations 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 about Jewish students, he stated: “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 rejected claims of coded political messaging. During his speech, the leader had reiterated on his remarks about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who speak English as a second language by asking the rally: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
While Scotland's First Minister criticised Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and Keir Starmer called them “harmful and polarising”, the defector argued that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
A Party on the Rise
The event, attended by an lively and passionate audience of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who bought tickets for the event, showcases Reform's increasing self-assurance ahead of the Scottish vote.
While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has gained significant ground in the past year, securing 26% of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. Following Scottish Labour's decline, the party has often relegated it to third lately, polling up to 22%.
Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland 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” in the Scottish Parliament.
Campaign Rhetoric
A Reform councillor, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He told supporters to “prepare for a fight” as we take on the political establishment”, cautioning 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”.
Farage himself 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 in previous years he had been warned he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.
Protests Nearby
Meanwhile, a few miles west in the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters were gathering for a now-regular weekly standoff outside a local hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated 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 asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.
However, he differentiated extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or community safety.
