Nigel Farage spoke to the biggest the party's rally held in Scotland to date, however avoided engaging with the press corps afterwards. Instead, newly defected peer Malcolm Offord was left to field questions on allegations of racism and antisemitism surrounding the party leader.
A High-Profile Defection
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor during a sold-out rally of about 700 supporters at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. The businessman, who worked as a junior minister for Scotland in the previous administration and most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to become a candidate for the party in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
Farage said he was “delighted” to welcome Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”.
Dodging the Press
The Reform leader addressed the rally following a difficult period which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him regarding a report into alleged racist and remarks as a youth. However, Farage dodged the expected press huddle post-rally.
When asked why Farage did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations 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 his alleged remarks about Jewish students, Offord said: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Defending the Leader
Offord insisted that the leader is “morally fit” to be prime minister and denied he was employing 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 asking the rally: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
While the first minister, John Swinney criticised the initial comments as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that “voters are discussing”.
A Party on the Rise
The event, attended by an energetic and enthused crowd of predominantly older, white male backers who bought tickets for the event, showcases the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.
While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has gained significant ground in the past year, securing 26% of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place in recent months, polling up to 22%.
Declaring that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled in the past year to a running total of 12,000, the party chair, David Bull stated his belief it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, which would place Reform in “a powerful situation” in the Scottish Parliament.
Campaign Rhetoric
Thomas Kerr, a local representative for the party, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “the future PM of the UK”. He told supporters to “prepare for a fight” as we take on the political establishment”, warning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.
Although the party has yet to produce a distinct policy platform for Scotland, representatives vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.
Farage himself expressed his pleasure at the party’s emergence as a force in the political scene in Scotland over the past 12 months, confessing to supporters 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, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. In an interview, Scotland's leader warned that the tactic of the far-right is to assign responsibility … to new arrivals and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.
However, he differentiated extremist opinions and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or community safety.
