Nigel Farage spoke to the largest Reform UK public meeting so far in Scotland, however declined to speak with the press corps following the event. In his place, newly defected member of the House of Lords the former Conservative donor took on the task of field questions on allegations of racism and antisemitism surrounding Farage.
A High-Profile Defection
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor at a packed event of about 700 attendees in a hotel venue near Falkirk. The businessman, who worked as a junior minister for Scotland in the previous administration and was until recently the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for Reform UK in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
Farage said he was “delighted” to welcome the new member. He described the switch as “a courageous and significant move”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
The Reform leader addressed the rally after a turbulent week which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and remarks as a youth. However, the leader avoided the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.
Questioned why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations about his past behaviour, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Challenged about whether he believed Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks towards Jewish pupils, Offord said: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”
Defending the Leader
The peer maintained that Farage was “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 speak English as a second language by posing the question to the crowd: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”
While the first minister, John Swinney criticised the initial comments as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer called them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that “voters are discussing”.
A Party on the Rise
The event, 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 ahead of the Scottish vote.
Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has gained significant ground recently, securing 26% 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, polling up to 22%.
Declaring that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled in the past year to a running total of 12,000, a senior party official said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” in the Scottish Parliament.
Fighting Talk
Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, prompted a roar of approval as he described Farage as “the future PM of the UK”. He instructed the crowd to “man the barricades as we take on the political establishment”, warning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.
Although the party has yet to produce any Scotland-specific policies, representatives 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 the political scene in Scotland over the past 12 months, admitting to the audience that he was once told he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Protests Nearby
Meanwhile, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters were gathering for a now-regular weekly standoff 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. In an interview, Scotland's leader warned 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 extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
