Nigel Farage spoke to the biggest the party's public meeting so far in Scotland, however avoided engaging with the press corps following the event. In his place, recently switched member of the House of Lords the former Conservative donor was left to responding to queries on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to the party leader.
A High-Profile Defection
Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman during a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. The businessman, who worked as a Scotland Office minister under the last government 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 greet the new member. He called the peer’s defection as “a courageous and significant move”.
Dodging the Press
The Reform leader addressed the rally 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 from his teenage years. But, the leader avoided the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.
Questioned 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.”
Challenged about whether he believed Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks 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 “ethically suitable” to be prime minister and rejected claims of dog-whistle politics. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on previous comments about pupils in Glasgow who speak English as a second language by asking the rally: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
While the first minister, John Swinney criticised Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer called them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that his new leader was “drawing attention to a real concern” that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
Growing Confidence
The rally, filled with an lively and passionate audience of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who each paid £6 to attend, highlights the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.
While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has gained significant ground in the past year, securing 26% 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 in recent months, with support reaching over a fifth.
Declaring that party membership north of the border 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 very strong position” in the Scottish Parliament.
Fighting Talk
A Reform councillor, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he referred to the leader as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He told supporters to “prepare for a fight” as we take on the political establishment”, cautioning that “the next five months will be tough”.
Despite not yet publishing a distinct policy platform for Scotland, representatives vowed the party 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 the political scene in Scotland over the past 12 months, confessing to supporters that he was once told he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Protests Nearby
Meanwhile, a few miles west in the heart of Falkirk, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering 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. In an interview, Scotland's leader cautioned that the tactic of the far-right is to assign responsibility … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the root of the poison”.
However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “legitimate points” about strain on public services or community safety.
