The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the largest Reform UK rally so far in Scotland, but declined to speak with the press corps afterwards. In his place, newly defected peer Malcolm Offord was left to responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and antisemitism linked to the party leader.
A High-Profile Defection
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman during a sold-out rally of about 700 attendees at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland in the previous administration and most recently served as the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to stand for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.
Farage said he was “extremely pleased” to greet the new member. 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 included him delivering a fierce criticism of the broadcaster after they quizzed him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. However, the leader avoided a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event.
Questioned why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to address growing claims concerning his history, the new recruit responded: “That is a question for him to answer.”
Pressed on if he thought 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 the leader is “ethically suitable” to be prime minister and rejected claims of dog-whistle politics. 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 condemned the initial comments as “racist”, and the Labour leader called them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
Growing Confidence
The event, attended by an lively and passionate audience of predominantly older, white male backers who each paid £6 to attend, showcases Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.
While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has gained significant ground recently, securing 26% of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place 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 said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.
Fighting Talk
A Reform councillor, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, prompted a roar of approval as he referred to the leader as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He instructed the crowd to “man the barricades as we take on the political establishment”, warning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.
Despite not yet publishing any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.
Farage himself expressed his pleasure 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 “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.
Local Context
Meanwhile, a few miles west in Falkirk town centre, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters 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 criminal case involving an asylum seeker. 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 source of a harmful narrative”.
However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “legitimate points” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.
