Nigel Farage spoke to the largest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, however avoided engaging with local journalists afterwards. Instead, recently switched peer the former Conservative donor was left to responding to queries on allegations of racism and antisemitism linked to the party leader.
Welcoming a New Recruit
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman during a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred attendees in a hotel venue near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland in the previous administration and most recently served as 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.
Farage said he was “delighted” to welcome Offord to the party. He described the switch as “a courageous and significant move”.
Dodging the Press
The Reform leader spoke to the crowd following a difficult period which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster after they quizzed him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. But, Farage dodged the expected press huddle 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.”
Challenged about whether he believed Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks about Jewish students, he stated: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Insisting on Fitness
The peer maintained that the leader is “morally fit” to be prime minister and rejected claims of coded political messaging. During his speech, the leader had reiterated on previous comments about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who are not native English speakers by posing the question to the crowd: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
Although the first minister, John Swinney condemned the initial comments as “racist”, and the Labour leader labeled them “toxic and divisive”, the defector argued that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.
Growing Confidence
The rally, filled with an energetic and enthused crowd 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 made substantial progress in the past year, achieving a quarter 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 in recent months, polling up to 22%.
Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had increased fourfold over the last twelve months to 12,000 members, the party chair, David Bull 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.
Campaign Rhetoric
Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, prompted a roar of approval as he referred to the leader 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”.
Despite not yet publishing a distinct policy platform for Scotland, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.
The leader personally underlined his delight at Reform's rise as a significant player in the political scene in Scotland in the last year, confessing to supporters that in previous years he had been warned he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Protests Nearby
Meanwhile, a few miles west 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 said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. In an interview, Scotland's leader cautioned that “what the far right do is to assign responsibility … 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 community safety.
