Nigel Farage addressed the largest Reform UK public meeting held in Scotland to date, but avoided engaging with local journalists following the event. In his place, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor took on the task of field questions on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding the party leader.
Welcoming a New Recruit
Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor during a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred supporters in a hotel venue in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland under the last government and was until recently 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 greet the new member. He called the peer’s defection as “a courageous and significant move”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
The Reform leader spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him regarding a report into alleged racist and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. But, the leader avoided a planned media briefing post-rally.
Questioned why his new party’s leader was not available to address growing claims concerning his history, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Pressed on if he thought Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks towards Jewish pupils, he stated: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Defending the Leader
Offord insisted that Farage was “morally fit” to be prime minister and rejected claims of coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, Farage had doubled down on previous comments about pupils in Glasgow who speak English as a second language by asking the rally: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”
Although the first minister, John Swinney criticised Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and the Labour leader called them “toxic and divisive”, the defector argued that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that “voters are discussing”.
Growing Confidence
The event, filled with an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who each paid £6 to attend, showcases Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.
Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party 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, 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 a running total of 12,000, a senior party official said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” in the Scottish Parliament.
Campaign Rhetoric
A Reform councillor, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he referred to the leader as “the future PM of the UK”. He instructed the crowd to “man the barricades as we “challenge the ruling class”, warning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.
Despite not yet publishing any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east 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 Scottish politics in the last year, confessing to supporters that in previous years he had been warned he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Local Context
Meanwhile, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters were gathering for a now-regular weekly standoff outside a local hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. In an interview, Scotland's leader cautioned that the tactic of the far-right is to apportion the blame … to asylum seekers or migrants 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.