🔗 Share this article

The Reform UK figurehead addressed the biggest the party's public meeting held in Scotland to date, but avoided engaging with the press corps afterwards. In his place, recently switched peer Malcolm Offord was left to field questions on claims of discriminatory behaviour and antisemitism surrounding Farage.

Welcoming a New Recruit

Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and millionaire donor during a packed event of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland under the last government and most recently served as the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, 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.

The leader stated he was “extremely pleased” to greet 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 regarding a report into alleged racist and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. However, Farage dodged a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event.

Questioned why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, Offord said: “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.”

Insisting on Fitness

The peer maintained that Farage was “morally fit” to be the country's leader and rejected claims of coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, the leader had reiterated on his remarks about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who speak English as a second language by asking the rally: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”

While the first minister, John Swinney condemned Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and the Labour leader called them “harmful and polarising”, the defector argued that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.

Growing Confidence

The event, attended by an lively and passionate audience of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who each paid £6 to attend, highlights the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.

While 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. Following Scottish Labour's decline, the party has often relegated it to third in recent months, polling up to 22%.

Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled in the past year to a running total of 12,000, the party chair, David Bull said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, putting the party in “a very strong position” at Holyrood.

Campaign Rhetoric

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 told supporters to “prepare for a fight” as we “challenge the ruling class”, cautioning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.

Despite not yet publishing a distinct policy platform for Scotland, speakers from the north-east pledged Reform would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.

The leader personally expressed his pleasure at Reform's rise as a significant player in the political scene in Scotland in the last year, admitting to the audience that in previous years he had been warned he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.

Local Context

Meanwhile, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.

The organisers of the demonstrations stated they were motivated by a serious local crime. Speaking previously, Scotland's leader cautioned that “what the far right do is to apportion the blame … to new arrivals and I think that is the root of the poison”.

However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.