The Reform UK figurehead addressed the largest the party's public meeting so far in Scotland, but avoided engaging with the press corps following the event. In his place, recently switched peer Malcolm Offord took on the task of responding to queries on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to the party leader.
Welcoming a New Recruit
Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman during a sold-out rally of about 700 supporters 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 become a candidate for Reform UK in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
The leader stated he was “extremely pleased” to welcome Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection as “a courageous and significant move”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
Farage addressed the rally following a difficult period which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC for questioning him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and remarks from his teenage years. However, the leader avoided a planned media briefing post-rally.
Questioned why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”
Challenged about whether he believed an apology was necessary 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.”
Insisting on Fitness
The peer maintained that the leader is “morally fit” to be the country's leader and rejected claims of dog-whistle politics. While addressing supporters, the leader had reiterated on previous comments about pupils in Glasgow who speak English as a second language by asking the rally: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”
Although Scotland's First Minister condemned Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that “voters are discussing”.
A Party on the Rise
The event, filled with 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.
While the SNP continues to lead in the polls, Reform UK has made substantial progress in the past year, achieving a quarter of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. 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 12,000 members, a senior party official said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.
Campaign Rhetoric
Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he referred to the leader as “the future PM of the UK”. He told supporters to “man the barricades as we take on the political establishment”, cautioning that “the next five months will be tough”.
Although the party has yet to produce 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 underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in Scottish politics over the past 12 months, confessing to supporters that in previous years he had been warned he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Protests Nearby
As the event was taking place, a few miles west in the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters were gathering for what have become regular weekly confrontations outside a local hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.
A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. Speaking previously, Scotland's leader warned that the tactic of the far-right 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 between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
