Nigel Farage addressed the biggest the party's rally so far in Scotland, however declined to speak with local journalists following the event. In his place, recently switched peer Malcolm Offord was left to responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to Farage.
Welcoming a New Recruit
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor at a packed event of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and most recently served as the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, announced his intention to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to stand for the party in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
Farage said he was “extremely pleased” to greet Offord to the party. He described the switch as “a brave and historic act”.
Dodging the Press
The Reform leader addressed the rally after a turbulent week which included him delivering a fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him regarding a report into alleged racist and remarks as a youth. But, Farage dodged the expected press huddle post-rally.
When asked why his new party’s leader was not available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Pressed on if he thought an apology was necessary for his alleged remarks towards Jewish pupils, Offord said: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”
Insisting on Fitness
Offord insisted that the leader is “ethically suitable” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who are not native English speakers by asking the rally: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”
While Scotland's First Minister criticised the initial comments as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer called them “toxic and divisive”, the defector argued that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
A Party on the Rise
The event, filled with an lively and passionate audience of predominantly older, white male backers who bought tickets for the event, showcases the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.
Although 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. Following Scottish Labour's decline, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place lately, with support reaching over a fifth.
Declaring that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled in the past year to 12,000 members, a senior party official said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, putting the party in “a very strong position” in the Scottish Parliament.
Campaign Rhetoric
A Reform councillor, 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 “prepare for a fight” as we “challenge the ruling class”, warning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.
Despite not yet publishing any Scotland-specific policies, representatives vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.
Farage himself expressed his pleasure at the party’s emergence as a force in Scottish politics in the last year, admitting to the audience that he was once told 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 a now-regular weekly standoff near a hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.
The organisers of the demonstrations stated they were motivated by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. Speaking previously, Scotland's leader cautioned that the tactic of the far-right is to apportion the blame … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.
He also made a clear distinction between those who hold far-right views and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
