The Reform UK figurehead addressed the largest Reform UK public meeting held in Scotland to date, but declined to speak with local journalists following the event. Instead, newly defected member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord was left to responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to the party leader.
Welcoming a New Recruit
Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman during a packed event of about 700 attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and was until recently treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for the party in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
Farage said he was “delighted” to welcome Offord to the party. He described the switch as “a brave and historic act”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
Farage 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 from his teenage years. But, Farage dodged a planned media briefing post-rally.
When asked why his new party’s leader was not available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”
Pressed on whether he believed Farage should apologise for the comments he is said to have made about Jewish students, he stated: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”
Defending the Leader
The peer maintained that the leader is “morally fit” to be prime minister and denied he was employing coded political messaging. During his speech, Farage had doubled down 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?”
While the first minister, John Swinney condemned Farage’s original remarks 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”.
Growing Confidence
The event, filled with 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 ahead of the Scottish vote.
Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK 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, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place lately, polling up to 22%.
Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled in the past year to a running total of 12,000, the party chair, David Bull said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” in the Scottish Parliament.
Fighting Talk
A Reform councillor, a local representative for the party, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He instructed the crowd to “man the barricades as we take on the political establishment”, warning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.
Although the party has yet to produce a distinct policy platform for Scotland, representatives pledged Reform would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.
Farage himself expressed his pleasure at the party’s emergence as a force in Scottish politics over the past 12 months, confessing to supporters 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 what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.
The organisers of the demonstrations said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. Speaking previously, Scotland's leader warned that the tactic of the far-right is to assign responsibility … to new arrivals and I think that is the root of the poison”.
However, he differentiated extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.
