Nigel Farage addressed the largest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, but avoided engaging with local journalists following the event. Instead, recently switched member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord was left to responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to Farage.
Welcoming a New Recruit
Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor during a packed event of about 700 attendees in a hotel venue near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister 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 Reform UK in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
The leader stated he was “delighted” to greet Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection as “a courageous and significant move”.
Dodging the Press
Farage addressed the rally after a turbulent week which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC for questioning him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. However, the leader avoided the expected press huddle post-rally.
Questioned why Farage was not available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, the new recruit responded: “That is a question for him to answer.”
Challenged about whether he believed an apology was necessary for his alleged remarks towards Jewish pupils, 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 “ethically suitable” to be prime minister and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. 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 the first minister, John Swinney condemned Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and the Labour leader called them “harmful and polarising”, 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, filled with an lively and passionate audience of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who each paid £6 to attend, highlights the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.
Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has gained significant ground recently, securing 26% of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, the party has often relegated it to third in recent months, polling up to 22%.
Declaring that party membership north of the border had quadrupled over the last twelve months to 12,000 members, 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” in the Scottish Parliament.
Fighting Talk
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 instructed the crowd to “man the barricades as we take on the political establishment”, cautioning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.
Although the party has yet to produce a distinct policy platform for Scotland, representatives pledged Reform would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.
Farage himself underlined his delight at Reform's rise as a significant player in the political scene in Scotland over the past 12 months, admitting to the audience that in previous years he had been warned he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.
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 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 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”.
However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “legitimate points” about strain on public services or community safety.
