The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the biggest Reform UK public meeting so far in Scotland, but declined to speak with the press corps afterwards. In his place, newly defected peer Malcolm Offord took on the task of responding to queries on allegations of racism and antisemitism linked to Farage.
Welcoming a New Recruit
Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman at a packed event of about 700 attendees at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland under the last government and was until recently treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to stand for the party in next May’s Holyrood elections.
The leader stated 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 following a difficult period which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC for questioning him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and remarks as a youth. However, Farage dodged a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event.
Questioned why his new party’s leader was not available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Pressed on whether he believed an apology was necessary for his alleged remarks about Jewish students, Offord said: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Insisting on Fitness
Offord insisted that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing coded political messaging. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on previous comments about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who speak English as a second language by asking the rally: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”
While Scotland's First Minister criticised Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and Keir Starmer called them “harmful and polarising”, the defector argued that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue 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, showcases the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.
Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has made substantial progress recently, 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.
Declaring that party membership north of the border had increased fourfold 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, putting the party in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.
Fighting Talk
A Reform councillor, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he referred to the leader as “Britain’s next prime minister”. 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 a distinct policy platform for Scotland, speakers from the north-east pledged Reform would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.
Farage himself underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in the political scene in Scotland over the past 12 months, admitting to the audience that he was once told he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Local Context
As the event was taking place, a few miles west in the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations outside a local hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
The organisers of the demonstrations said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. Speaking previously, First Minister John Swinney warned 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 extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
