Nigel Farage addressed the biggest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, but avoided engaging with the press corps afterwards. Instead, recently switched peer Malcolm Offord was left to field questions on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding Farage.
Welcoming a New Recruit
The leader presented 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 was until recently the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, stated his plan 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 brave and historic act”.
Dodging the Press
Farage spoke to the crowd following a difficult period which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him regarding a report into alleged racist and remarks as a youth. But, the leader avoided the expected press huddle post-rally.
When asked why Farage did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Challenged about whether he believed Farage should apologise for the comments he is said to have made towards Jewish pupils, he stated: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Insisting on Fitness
The peer maintained that Farage was “morally fit” to be prime minister and rejected claims of coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who speak English as a second language by posing the question to the crowd: “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 Keir Starmer labeled them “harmful and polarising”, 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 energetic and enthused crowd of predominantly older, white male backers who each paid £6 to attend, highlights Reform's increasing self-assurance ahead of the Scottish vote.
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. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, the party has often relegated it to third in recent months, polling up to 22%.
Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had increased fourfold over the last twelve months to 12,000 members, a senior party official said he believed it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, which would place Reform in “a powerful situation” in the Scottish Parliament.
Fighting Talk
A Reform councillor, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He told supporters to “man the barricades as we take on the political establishment”, warning that “the next five months will be tough”.
Despite not yet publishing a distinct policy platform for Scotland, representatives pledged Reform would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.
Farage himself expressed his pleasure at Reform's rise as a significant player in the political scene in Scotland in the last year, confessing to supporters that in previous years he had been warned he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.
Protests Nearby
Meanwhile, not far away in Falkirk town centre, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated by a serious local crime. Speaking previously, Scotland's leader warned that “what the far right do is to apportion the blame … to new arrivals and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.
However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “legitimate points” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.
