Nigel Farage addressed the biggest Reform UK public meeting held in Scotland to date, however avoided engaging with local journalists following the event. In his place, recently switched peer the former Conservative donor was left to field questions on allegations of racism and antisemitism linked to Farage.
Welcoming a New Recruit
Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and millionaire donor at a packed event of about 700 supporters in a hotel venue in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and was until recently the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, stated his plan to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to stand for Reform UK in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
The leader stated he was “extremely pleased” to welcome Offord to the party. He described the switch as “a brave and historic act”.
Dodging the Press
Farage spoke to the crowd following a difficult period which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him about an investigation into alleged racist and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. However, the leader avoided the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.
Questioned why his new party’s leader was not available to address growing claims concerning his history, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Challenged about 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 Farage was “ethically suitable” to be prime minister and rejected claims of 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?”
Although Scotland's First Minister condemned the initial comments as “racist”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.
Growing Confidence
The event, attended by an energetic and enthused crowd of predominantly older, white male backers who bought tickets for the event, highlights Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.
While the SNP continues to lead in the polls, the party has gained significant ground in the past year, achieving a quarter of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place in recent months, 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 stated his belief it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” 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 “the future PM of the UK”. He told supporters to “man the barricades as we “challenge the ruling class”, warning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.
Although the party has yet to produce any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east pledged Reform would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.
Farage himself underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in Scottish politics in the last year, confessing to supporters that he was once told he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.
Protests Nearby
As the event was taking place, not far away in Falkirk town centre, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for a now-regular weekly standoff near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. Speaking previously, First Minister John Swinney warned that “what the far right do is to assign responsibility … to new arrivals 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 strain on public services or neighbourhood security.