The Reform UK figurehead addressed the biggest the party's rally so far in Scotland, however avoided engaging with the press corps following the event. In his place, recently switched peer Malcolm Offord was left to field questions on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to the party leader.
A High-Profile Defection
Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman 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 most recently served as 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 next May’s Holyrood elections.
The leader stated he was “delighted” to greet the new member. He described the switch as “a courageous and significant move”.
Dodging the Press
Farage addressed the rally following a difficult period which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster after they quizzed him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. However, the leader avoided a planned media briefing post-rally.
Questioned why Farage was not available to address growing claims concerning his history, the new recruit responded: “That is a question for him to answer.”
Challenged about if he thought Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks towards Jewish pupils, Offord said: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Defending the Leader
Offord insisted that Farage was “morally fit” 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 the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who are not native English speakers by posing the question to the crowd: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
Although the first minister, John Swinney condemned the initial comments as “racist”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
A Party on the Rise
The rally, filled with 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.
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, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place in recent months, polling up to 22%.
Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had increased fourfold in the past year to a running total of 12,000, the party chair, David Bull said he believed it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, putting the party in “a very strong position” at Holyrood.
Fighting Talk
Thomas Kerr, a local representative for the party, prompted a roar of approval as he referred to the leader 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 a distinct policy platform for Scotland, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.
The leader personally underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in Scottish politics over the past 12 months, confessing to supporters that he was once told he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Protests Nearby
As the event was taking place, a few miles west in the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations outside a local hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised 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”.
He also made a clear distinction extremist opinions and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
