The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the largest Reform UK rally so far in Scotland, however avoided engaging with the press corps afterwards. In his place, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor was left to responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to the party leader.
Welcoming a New Recruit
The leader presented the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman at a packed event of about 700 attendees at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. The businessman, who worked as a junior minister for Scotland 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 stand for Reform UK in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
The leader stated 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 after a turbulent week which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC for questioning him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. However, Farage dodged the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.
Questioned why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to address growing claims concerning his history, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Pressed on if he thought 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 denied he was employing coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, the leader had reiterated on previous comments 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 Scotland's First Minister criticised Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and the Labour leader called them “toxic and divisive”, the defector argued that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.
Growing Confidence
The rally, filled with an lively and passionate audience of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who bought tickets for the event, highlights the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.
While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has made substantial progress recently, securing 26% of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. Following Scottish Labour's decline, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place in recent months, polling up to 22%.
Announcing that party membership north of the border had increased fourfold in the past year to 12,000 members, the party chair, David Bull said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, which would place Reform in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.
Fighting Talk
Thomas Kerr, 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 “man the barricades as we take on the political establishment”, cautioning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.
Despite not yet publishing any Scotland-specific policies, 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 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, demonstrators with opposing views assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. Speaking previously, First Minister John Swinney warned that “what the far right do is to assign responsibility … 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 “legitimate points” about strain on public services or community safety.
