The Reform UK figurehead addressed the biggest the party's public meeting held in Scotland to date, however avoided engaging with the press corps afterwards. Instead, recently switched member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord was left to responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour 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 supporters at a hotel conference centre 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.
Farage said he was “delighted” to greet Offord to the party. He described the switch as “a courageous and significant move”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
Farage addressed the rally following a difficult period which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC for questioning him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. But, Farage dodged the expected press huddle post-rally.
Questioned why his new party’s leader was not available to answer mounting allegations about his past behaviour, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Pressed on if he thought an apology was necessary for his alleged remarks about Jewish students, he stated: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”
Insisting on Fitness
The peer maintained that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. During his speech, 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?”
Although the first minister, John Swinney criticised Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
A Party on the Rise
The rally, attended by an lively and passionate audience 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.
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 a recent parliamentary by-election. 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 over the last twelve months to 12,000 members, a senior party official 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.
Fighting Talk
Thomas Kerr, a local representative for the party, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He told supporters to “prepare for a fight” as we “challenge the ruling class”, warning that “the next five months will be tough”.
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”.
Farage himself 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
As the event was taking place, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for a now-regular weekly standoff near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
The organisers of the demonstrations said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. In an interview, Scotland's leader 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”.
However, he differentiated extremist opinions and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or community safety.
