Nigel Farage addressed the largest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, however avoided engaging with local journalists afterwards. Instead, newly defected member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord was left to field questions on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to the party leader.
A High-Profile Defection
The leader presented the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman at a packed event of roughly seven hundred 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 treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to become a candidate for Reform UK in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
Farage said he was “extremely pleased” to welcome the new member. He described the switch as “a courageous and significant move”.
Dodging the Press
Farage spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week which included him delivering a fierce criticism of the broadcaster after they quizzed him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. But, the leader avoided the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.
When asked why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Pressed on whether he believed Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks about Jewish students, Offord said: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”
Defending the Leader
Offord insisted that the leader is “ethically suitable” to be the country's leader and rejected claims of coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, the leader had reiterated on previous comments about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who are not native English speakers by asking the rally: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”
Although Scotland's First Minister condemned Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.
A Party on the Rise
The event, attended by an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who bought tickets for the event, highlights Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.
While the SNP continues to lead in the polls, Reform UK has gained significant ground recently, securing 26% of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, the party has often relegated it to third lately, with support reaching over a fifth.
Announcing that party membership north of the border had increased fourfold over the last twelve months to a running total of 12,000, the party chair, David Bull stated his belief it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” at Holyrood.
Fighting Talk
A Reform councillor, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, prompted a roar of approval as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He told supporters 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 pledged Reform would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.
The leader personally expressed his pleasure at Reform's rise as a significant player in the political scene in Scotland over the past 12 months, admitting to the audience that he was once told he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.
Protests Nearby
Meanwhile, not far away 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.
The organisers of the demonstrations said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. Speaking previously, Scotland's leader warned that “what the far right do is to assign responsibility … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.
He also made a clear distinction between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
