Nigel Farage spoke to the largest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, however avoided engaging with the press corps afterwards. Instead, recently switched peer Malcolm Offord took on the task of field questions on allegations of racism and antisemitism surrounding Farage.
Welcoming a New Recruit
Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and millionaire donor during a packed event of roughly seven hundred attendees in a hotel venue 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 become a candidate for the party in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
Farage said he was “delighted” to greet Offord to the party. He described the switch as “a brave and historic act”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
Farage addressed the rally after a turbulent week which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC for questioning him regarding a report into alleged racist and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. But, Farage dodged the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.
Questioned why his new party’s leader was not available to address growing claims concerning his history, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Pressed on whether he believed an apology was necessary for the comments he is said to have made towards Jewish pupils, he stated: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”
Defending the Leader
Offord insisted that the leader is “morally fit” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, the leader had reiterated on his remarks 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?”
While the first minister, John Swinney criticised the initial comments as “racist”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
Growing Confidence
The rally, filled with an lively and passionate audience of predominantly older, white male backers who each paid £6 to attend, showcases the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.
Although the SNP continues to lead in the polls, Reform UK has made substantial progress in the past year, achieving a quarter of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. Following Scottish Labour's decline, the party has often relegated it to third in recent months, polling up to 22%.
Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had increased fourfold in the past year to 12,000 members, the party chair, David Bull said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” at Holyrood.
Fighting Talk
Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers 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”, cautioning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.
Although the party has yet to produce any Scotland-specific policies, representatives vowed the party 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, confessing to supporters that he was once told he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Local Context
Meanwhile, a few miles west in Falkirk town centre, demonstrators with opposing views assembled for a now-regular weekly standoff near a hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.
A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. Speaking previously, 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”.
He also made a clear distinction extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
