Nigel Farage addressed the biggest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, however avoided engaging with the press corps following the event. Instead, newly defected member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord 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 ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor during a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland in the previous administration and most recently served as the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, stated his plan to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to stand for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.
Farage said he was “delighted” to greet Offord to the party. He described the switch as “a brave and historic act”.
Dodging the Press
The Reform leader spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him about an investigation into alleged racist and remarks as a youth. However, Farage dodged the expected press huddle post-rally.
Questioned why Farage did not make himself available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Challenged about if he thought an apology was necessary for the comments he is said to have made about Jewish students, Offord said: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Insisting on Fitness
The peer maintained that the leader is “ethically suitable” to be prime minister and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. During his speech, the leader had reiterated 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?”
While the first minister, John Swinney criticised Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and the Labour leader labeled them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
Growing Confidence
The event, filled with an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters 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 made substantial progress in the past year, securing 26% of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. Following Scottish Labour's decline, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place lately, polling up to 22%.
Announcing that party membership north of the border had increased fourfold over the last twelve months to a running total of 12,000, the party chair, David Bull stated his belief it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, putting the party in “a very strong position” 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 “prepare for a fight” as we take on the political establishment”, cautioning that “the next five months will be tough”.
Although the party has yet to produce any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.
Farage himself underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in Scottish politics in the last year, admitting to the audience that in previous years he had been warned he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Protests Nearby
As the event was taking place, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, demonstrators with opposing views assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
The organisers of the demonstrations said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. Speaking previously, First Minister John Swinney warned that “what the far right do is to apportion the blame … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.
He also made a clear distinction extremist opinions and people with “valid concerns” about strain on public services or community safety.
