Nigel Farage spoke to the biggest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, however avoided engaging with local journalists afterwards. Instead, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor took on the task of field questions on claims of discriminatory behaviour and antisemitism linked to the party leader.
A High-Profile Defection
Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman at a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred attendees in a hotel venue in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland in the previous administration 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 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 courageous and significant move”.
Dodging the Press
The Reform leader spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week which included him delivering a fierce criticism of the broadcaster after they quizzed him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. But, Farage dodged the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.
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 if he thought an apology was necessary for the comments he is said to have made towards Jewish pupils, Offord said: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Insisting on Fitness
Offord insisted that Farage was “morally fit” to be prime minister 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 voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
While the first minister, John Swinney condemned Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “harmful and polarising”, the defector argued that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
Growing Confidence
The event, attended by an energetic and enthused crowd of predominantly older, white male backers who each paid £6 to attend, highlights the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.
Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party 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, the party has often relegated it to third in recent months, with support reaching over a fifth.
Declaring that party membership north of the border had increased fourfold in the past year 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 powerful situation” at Holyrood.
Campaign Rhetoric
A Reform councillor, a local representative for the party, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He told supporters to “man the barricades as we “challenge the ruling class”, warning that “the next five months will be tough”.
Despite not yet publishing any Scotland-specific policies, representatives pledged Reform 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 over the past 12 months, confessing to supporters that he was once told he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Protests Nearby
As the event was taking place, a few miles west in Falkirk town centre, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations outside a local hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated 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 new arrivals 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 strain on public services or neighbourhood security.
