The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the biggest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, but declined to speak with local journalists following the event. In his place, newly defected member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord was left to responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and antisemitism surrounding the party leader.
Welcoming a New Recruit
Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and millionaire donor at a packed event of about 700 supporters at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to stand for the party in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
The leader stated he was “extremely pleased” to greet Offord to the party. 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 fierce criticism of the broadcaster after they quizzed him regarding a report into alleged racist and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. However, Farage dodged the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.
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.”
Pressed on whether he believed Farage should apologise for the comments he is said to have made about Jewish students, he stated: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Insisting on Fitness
Offord insisted that the leader is “morally fit” 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 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 “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “toxic and divisive”, the defector argued that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that “voters are discussing”.
A Party on the Rise
The rally, attended by an lively and passionate audience of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who bought tickets for the event, highlights the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.
Although 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 a recent parliamentary by-election. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place lately, with support reaching over a fifth.
Declaring that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled over the last twelve months to a running total of 12,000, a senior party official said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” at Holyrood.
Campaign Rhetoric
A Reform councillor, a local representative for the party, 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”, warning 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”.
The leader personally expressed his pleasure at the party’s emergence as a force 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
Meanwhile, not far away in Falkirk town centre, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters were gathering 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, Scotland's leader warned that “what the far right do is to assign responsibility … 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 “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
