The Reform UK figurehead addressed the biggest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, however avoided engaging with local journalists following the event. In his place, newly defected member of the House of Lords the former Conservative donor took on the task of field questions on allegations of racism and antisemitism linked to Farage.
Welcoming a New Recruit
The leader presented the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman at a sold-out rally 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 treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for the party in next May’s Holyrood elections.
Farage said he was “extremely pleased” to welcome the new member. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
Farage addressed the rally after a turbulent week which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC for questioning him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. But, the leader avoided the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.
Questioned why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Challenged about if he thought Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks about Jewish students, Offord said: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Insisting on Fitness
Offord insisted that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be prime minister and rejected claims of coded political messaging. During his speech, the leader had reiterated on his remarks about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who speak English as a second language by posing the question to the crowd: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”
Although the first minister, John Swinney criticised the initial comments as “racist”, and Keir Starmer called them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that “voters are discussing”.
A Party on the Rise
The rally, filled with 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, Reform UK has made substantial progress recently, securing 26% 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 lately, 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, the party chair, David Bull stated his belief it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, putting the party in “a very strong position” in the Scottish Parliament.
Fighting Talk
Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, 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”.
Although the party has yet to produce any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east pledged Reform would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.
Farage himself underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in the political scene in Scotland in the last year, admitting to the audience that in previous years he had been warned he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.
Protests Nearby
Meanwhile, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering for a now-regular weekly standoff near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
The organisers of the demonstrations stated they were motivated by a serious local crime. In an interview, Scotland's leader cautioned that the tactic of the far-right is to assign responsibility … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.
However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “legitimate points” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.
