🔗 Share this article

The Reform UK figurehead addressed the biggest Reform UK rally so far in Scotland, however avoided engaging with the press corps following the event. In his place, newly defected member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord was left to field questions on allegations of racism and antisemitism linked to Farage.

Welcoming a New Recruit

Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman during a packed event of roughly seven hundred supporters in a hotel venue near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and most recently served as the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to stand for the party in next May’s Holyrood elections.

The leader stated he was “extremely pleased” to greet Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection as “a courageous and significant move”.

Avoiding Media Scrutiny

The Reform leader addressed the rally following a difficult period which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him regarding a report into alleged racist and remarks from his teenage years. But, the leader avoided a planned media briefing post-rally.

Questioned why Farage was not available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”

Pressed on if he thought 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

Offord insisted that Farage was “morally fit” to be prime minister and rejected claims of coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, 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?”

Although Scotland's First Minister criticised Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and the Labour leader called them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.

A Party on the Rise

The event, 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 ahead of the Scottish vote.

While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has gained significant ground in the past year, achieving a quarter of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. 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 in the past year to a running total of 12,000, a senior party official stated his belief it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, which would place Reform in “a powerful situation” in the Scottish Parliament.

Campaign Rhetoric

A Reform councillor, 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 take on the political establishment”, cautioning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.

Despite not yet publishing a distinct policy platform for Scotland, representatives pledged Reform would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.

Farage himself expressed his pleasure 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, a few miles west in the heart of Falkirk, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering for a now-regular weekly standoff outside a local 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 “what the far right do is to apportion the blame … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the root of the poison”.

He also made a clear distinction extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.