🔗 Share this article

Nigel Farage addressed the biggest Reform UK public meeting held in Scotland to date, but avoided engaging with the press corps afterwards. In his place, recently switched member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord took on the task of responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding the party leader.

Welcoming a New Recruit

Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman at a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. The businessman, who worked as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and most recently served as the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for Reform UK 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”.

Avoiding Media Scrutiny

The Reform leader addressed the rally after a turbulent week which included him delivering a fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. However, the leader avoided a planned media briefing post-rally.

Questioned why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations about his past behaviour, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”

Challenged about if he thought Farage should apologise for the comments he is said to have made about Jewish students, he stated: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”

Defending the Leader

Offord insisted that the leader is “morally fit” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, Farage had doubled down on previous comments about pupils in Glasgow who are not native English speakers by asking the rally: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”

While the first minister, John Swinney criticised Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and the Labour leader labeled them “harmful and polarising”, the defector argued that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.

A Party on the Rise

The rally, attended by an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who each paid £6 to attend, showcases the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.

While the SNP continues to lead in the polls, 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, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place lately, 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 gain up to 20 MSPs in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” in the Scottish Parliament.

Campaign Rhetoric

A Reform councillor, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “the future PM of the UK”. He instructed the crowd to “man the barricades as we “challenge the ruling class”, cautioning that “the next five months will be tough”.

Although the party has yet to produce any Scotland-specific policies, 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 Scottish politics over the past 12 months, admitting to the audience that he was once told he “couldn't fill a small venue”.

Protests Nearby

As the event was taking place, not far away in Falkirk town centre, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations outside a local hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.

A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. Speaking previously, First Minister John Swinney cautioned that “what the far right do 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 between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.