Nigel Farage addressed the largest Reform UK public meeting so far in Scotland, but avoided engaging with the press corps following the event. In his place, newly defected member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord took on the task of responding to queries on allegations of racism and antisemitism surrounding the party leader.
Welcoming a New Recruit
Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and millionaire donor during a packed event of about 700 attendees in a hotel venue near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and was until recently treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for Reform UK 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”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
The Reform leader addressed the rally following a difficult period which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and remarks from his teenage years. However, the leader avoided a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event.
Questioned why Farage was not available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, Offord said: “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 about Jewish students, he stated: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”
Defending the Leader
The peer maintained that the leader is “morally fit” to be the country's leader and rejected claims of coded political messaging. During his speech, 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 the first minister, John Swinney condemned the initial comments as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.
Growing Confidence
The event, filled with an energetic and enthused crowd of predominantly older, white male backers who each paid £6 to attend, highlights the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.
Although the SNP continues to lead in the polls, Reform UK has gained significant ground 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 increased fourfold over the last twelve months to a running total of 12,000, a senior party official stated his belief it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.
Campaign Rhetoric
Thomas Kerr, a local representative for the party, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He instructed the crowd to “prepare for a fight” as we take on the political establishment”, cautioning 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 pledged Reform would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.
Farage himself expressed his pleasure at Reform's rise as a significant player 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”.
Protests Nearby
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 where asylum seekers are now housed.
A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. Speaking previously, Scotland's leader warned that “what the far right do is to apportion the blame … 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 strain on public services or community safety.
