Nigel Farage spoke to the biggest Reform UK rally so far in Scotland, but avoided engaging with the press corps afterwards. In his place, newly defected member of the House of Lords the former Conservative donor took on the task of responding to queries on allegations of racism and antisemitism linked to the party leader.
Welcoming a New Recruit
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman during a packed event of roughly seven hundred supporters at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and was until recently the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to stand for Reform UK in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
The leader stated he was “extremely pleased” to greet Offord to the party. 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 fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. However, the leader avoided a planned media briefing post-rally.
When asked why his new party’s leader was not available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Challenged about whether he believed Farage should apologise for the comments he is said to have made towards Jewish pupils, Offord said: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”
Insisting on Fitness
Offord insisted that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be prime minister and rejected claims of coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, Farage had doubled down on previous comments about pupils in Glasgow who speak English as a second language by asking the rally: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
While the first minister, John Swinney criticised Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer called them “toxic and divisive”, the defector argued that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
A Party on the Rise
The rally, attended by an lively and passionate audience 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, the party has gained significant ground recently, 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 party membership north of the border had increased fourfold over the last twelve months to 12,000 members, the party chair, David Bull said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, putting the party in “a very strong position” at Holyrood.
Campaign Rhetoric
A Reform councillor, 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 “prepare for a fight” as we take on the political establishment”, cautioning that “the next five months will be tough”.
Despite not yet publishing any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.
Farage himself underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in the political scene in Scotland in the last year, confessing to supporters that in previous years he had been warned he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Local Context
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 stated they were motivated by a serious local crime. Speaking previously, Scotland's leader warned that the tactic of the far-right is to assign responsibility … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the root of the poison”.
However, he differentiated extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
