Nigel Farage spoke to the biggest the party's public meeting so far in Scotland, but avoided engaging with local journalists afterwards. Instead, newly defected peer Malcolm Offord was left to responding to queries on allegations of racism and antisemitism linked to the party leader.
Welcoming a New Recruit
The leader presented the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman at a sold-out rally of about 700 supporters in a hotel venue in central Scotland. The businessman, who worked as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.
The leader stated he was “delighted” to greet Offord to the party. He described the switch as “a brave and historic act”.
Dodging the Press
Farage addressed the rally after a turbulent week which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and remarks from his teenage years. However, the leader avoided a planned media briefing post-rally.
Questioned why Farage 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 whether he believed Farage should apologise for the comments he is said to have made towards Jewish pupils, Offord said: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Defending the Leader
The peer maintained that the leader is “ethically suitable” to be prime minister and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. 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 voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
While the first minister, John Swinney criticised Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer called them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
Growing Confidence
The event, filled with an lively and passionate audience of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who bought tickets for the event, showcases Reform's increasing self-assurance ahead of the Scottish vote.
While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has made substantial progress in the past year, achieving a quarter of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place lately, polling up to 22%.
Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had increased fourfold over the last twelve months to 12,000 members, a senior party official stated his belief it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” in the Scottish Parliament.
Fighting Talk
Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, prompted a roar of approval as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He instructed the crowd 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 “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.
Farage himself 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
As the event was taking place, a few miles west in Falkirk town centre, demonstrators with opposing views assembled for a now-regular weekly standoff outside a local hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.
A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. In an interview, First Minister John Swinney 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”.
He also made a clear distinction extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or community safety.
