Nigel Farage spoke to the biggest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, but declined to speak with local journalists following the event. In his place, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor took on the task of field questions on allegations of racism and antisemitism surrounding the party leader.
A High-Profile Defection
Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor during a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and was until recently the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.
Farage said he was “delighted” to welcome the new member. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”.
Dodging the Press
Farage addressed the rally following a difficult period which included him delivering a fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him about an investigation into alleged racist and remarks from his teenage years. But, the leader avoided a planned media briefing post-rally.
When asked why Farage did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”
Pressed on whether he believed 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
The peer maintained that the leader is “ethically suitable” to be prime minister and rejected claims of dog-whistle politics. During his speech, the leader had reiterated on previous comments about pupils in Glasgow who are not native English speakers 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 “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “harmful and polarising”, the defector argued that his new leader was “drawing attention to a real concern” that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
A Party on the Rise
The rally, attended by an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who each paid £6 to attend, showcases the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.
While the SNP continues to lead in the polls, the party has gained significant ground recently, securing 26% of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. Following Scottish Labour's decline, the party has often relegated it to third lately, with support reaching over a fifth.
Declaring that party membership north of the border had quadrupled in the past year 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 powerful situation” at Holyrood.
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 instructed the crowd to “prepare for a fight” as we take on the political establishment”, cautioning that “the next five months will be tough”.
Although the party has yet to produce any Scotland-specific policies, 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 the party’s emergence as a force in Scottish politics in the last year, confessing to supporters that in previous years he had been warned he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Local Context
Meanwhile, not far away 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.
A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. In an interview, Scotland's leader warned 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 “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or community safety.
