Nigel Farage addressed the largest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, but declined to speak with the press corps following the event. Instead, recently switched member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord was left to field questions on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to Farage.
Welcoming a New Recruit
The leader presented the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman during a sold-out rally of about 700 attendees at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and was until recently the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for the party in next May’s Holyrood elections.
The leader stated he was “extremely pleased” to welcome Offord to the party. He described the switch as “a courageous and significant move”.
Dodging the Press
Farage spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC 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.
Questioned why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, the new recruit responded: “That is a question for him to answer.”
Pressed on whether he believed 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.”
Defending the Leader
The peer maintained that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. During his speech, the leader had reiterated 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?”
While the first minister, John Swinney condemned the initial comments as “racist”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “harmful and polarising”, the defector argued that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
A Party on the Rise
The rally, 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 before next May’s elections.
Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party 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 lately, with support reaching over a fifth.
Announcing that party membership north of the border had increased fourfold in the past year to a running total of 12,000, a senior party official said he believed it could win around twenty parliamentary seats 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, elicited loud cheers as he referred to the leader as “the future PM of the UK”. He told supporters to “man the barricades as we take on the political establishment”, warning that “the next five months will be tough”.
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 underlined his delight at Reform's rise as a significant player in the political scene in Scotland over the past 12 months, admitting to the audience that in previous years he had been warned he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.
Protests Nearby
As the event was taking place, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering for a now-regular weekly standoff near a hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.
A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. Speaking previously, Scotland's leader warned that the tactic of the far-right is to apportion the blame … to new arrivals and I think that is the root of the poison”.
He also made a clear distinction between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.
