Nigel Farage spoke to the biggest the party's rally so far in Scotland, however avoided engaging with local journalists following the event. In his place, recently switched peer Malcolm Offord took on the task of field questions on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to the party leader.
Welcoming a New Recruit
Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman during a sold-out rally of about 700 attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and most recently served as the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to stand for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.
Farage said he was “delighted” to greet Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection as “a courageous and significant move”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
The Reform leader spoke to the crowd following a difficult period 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 about his past behaviour, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Pressed on if he thought Farage should apologise for the comments he is said to have made about Jewish students, 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 “morally fit” to be the country's leader and rejected claims of dog-whistle politics. While addressing supporters, 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?”
While the first minister, John Swinney criticised Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and the Labour leader labeled them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that his new leader was “drawing attention to a real concern” that “voters are discussing”.
A Party on the Rise
The rally, filled with an lively and passionate audience of predominantly older, white male backers who bought tickets for the event, showcases Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.
While the SNP continues to lead in the polls, the party has made substantial progress 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 in recent months, with support reaching over a fifth.
Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled in the past year to 12,000 members, the party chair, David Bull said he believed it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.
Fighting Talk
A Reform councillor, a local representative for the party, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “the future PM of the UK”. He told supporters to “prepare for a fight” as we “challenge the ruling class”, cautioning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.
Although the party has yet to produce any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east pledged Reform 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 in previous years he had been warned he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Local Context
As the event was taking place, a few miles west in the heart of Falkirk, 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 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 extremist opinions and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
