Nigel Farage addressed the biggest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, however declined to speak with local journalists afterwards. Instead, newly defected member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord took on the task of field questions on claims of discriminatory behaviour and antisemitism linked to the party leader.
A High-Profile Defection
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman at a sold-out rally of about 700 attendees in a hotel venue in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland under the last government and most recently served as the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, announced his intention to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to stand for Reform UK in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
Farage said he was “delighted” to greet the new member. 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 included him delivering a fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. However, Farage dodged a planned media briefing post-rally.
When asked why his new party’s leader was not available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Pressed on if he thought Farage should apologise for the comments he is said to have made about Jewish students, Offord said: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”
Defending the Leader
The peer maintained that Farage was “morally fit” to be prime minister and rejected claims of coded political messaging. During his speech, 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 condemned the initial comments as “racist”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “toxic and divisive”, the defector argued that his new leader was “drawing attention to a real concern” that “voters are discussing”.
A Party on the Rise
The rally, attended by an energetic and enthused crowd of predominantly older, white male backers who each paid £6 to attend, highlights Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.
While the SNP continues to lead in the polls, Reform UK has gained significant ground in the past year, securing 26% of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. Following Scottish Labour's decline, the party has often relegated it to third in recent months, with support reaching over a fifth.
Announcing 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 win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” at Holyrood.
Campaign Rhetoric
Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, prompted a roar of approval as he referred to the leader as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He told supporters to “prepare for a fight” as we “challenge the ruling class”, warning that “the next five months will be tough”.
Despite not yet publishing a distinct policy platform for Scotland, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.
Farage himself expressed his pleasure at Reform's rise as a significant player in Scottish politics over the past 12 months, admitting to the audience that he was once told he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Local Context
Meanwhile, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
The organisers of the demonstrations stated they were motivated by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. 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”.
He also made a clear distinction between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
