Nigel Farage addressed the biggest Reform UK public meeting so far in Scotland, however declined to speak with the press corps following the event. Instead, recently switched peer the former Conservative donor took on the task of field questions on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding Farage.
Welcoming a New Recruit
The leader presented the former Conservative peer and millionaire donor during a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to become a candidate for the party in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
Farage said he was “delighted” to welcome Offord to the party. He described the switch as “a brave and historic act”.
Dodging the Press
The Reform leader addressed the rally after a turbulent week which included him delivering a fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. However, the leader avoided a planned media briefing post-rally.
When asked why his new party’s leader was not available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”
Challenged about if he thought Farage should apologise 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.”
Insisting on Fitness
Offord insisted that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be prime minister and rejected claims of coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about pupils in Glasgow who are not native English speakers by asking the rally: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
Although Scotland's First Minister condemned the initial comments as “racist”, and the Labour leader labeled them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.
A Party on the Rise
The event, filled with an energetic and enthused crowd of predominantly older, white male backers who each paid £6 to attend, showcases the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.
Although the SNP continues to lead in the polls, Reform UK has made substantial progress in the past year, securing 26% of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, the party has often relegated it to third in recent months, with support reaching over a fifth.
Announcing that party membership north of the border had quadrupled over the last twelve months to 12,000 members, a senior party official 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, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, prompted a roar of approval as he described Farage as “the future PM of the UK”. He instructed the crowd to “prepare for a fight” as we “challenge the ruling class”, cautioning that “the next five months will be tough”.
Although the party has yet to produce any Scotland-specific policies, representatives 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, admitting to the audience that he was once told he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Local Context
Meanwhile, a few miles west in the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for a now-regular weekly standoff outside a local hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
The organisers of the demonstrations said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. Speaking previously, Scotland's leader cautioned that the tactic of the far-right is to assign responsibility … to new arrivals 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 “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
