Nigel Farage spoke to the largest Reform UK public meeting so far in Scotland, but declined to speak with local journalists following the event. In his place, recently switched member of the House of Lords the former Conservative donor took on the task of field questions on allegations of racism and antisemitism surrounding the party leader.
Welcoming a New Recruit
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman at a packed event of about 700 attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. The businessman, who worked as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and most recently served as the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, stated his plan 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 greet Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection as “a courageous and significant move”.
Dodging the Press
Farage addressed the rally following a difficult period which included him delivering a fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him about an investigation into alleged racist and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. But, the leader avoided the expected press huddle post-rally.
Questioned why Farage was not available to address growing claims concerning his history, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”
Challenged about if he thought an apology was necessary 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
Offord insisted that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing coded political messaging. During his speech, the leader had reiterated on previous comments 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 criticised Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and the Labour leader labeled them “harmful and polarising”, the defector argued that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.
A Party on the Rise
The event, filled with an lively and passionate audience of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who bought tickets for the event, highlights Reform's increasing self-assurance ahead of the Scottish vote.
While the SNP continues to lead in the polls, the party has made substantial progress in the past year, securing 26% of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. Following Scottish Labour's decline, 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 quadrupled in the past year to a running total of 12,000, a senior party official stated his belief it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, which would place Reform in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.
Fighting Talk
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 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 any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east pledged Reform would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.
The leader personally underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in Scottish politics over the past 12 months, confessing to supporters that in previous years he had been warned he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.
Local Context
Meanwhile, a few miles west in Falkirk town centre, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations 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. 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 root of the poison”.
However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about strain on public services or community safety.
