🔗 Share this article

Nigel Farage addressed the largest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, however declined to speak with local journalists afterwards. Instead, newly defected peer Malcolm Offord took on the task of responding to queries on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to Farage.

A High-Profile Defection

Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman during a packed event of roughly seven hundred supporters 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 treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to relinquish his seat in the Lords 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 courageous and significant move”.

Dodging the Press

The Reform leader addressed the rally after a turbulent week which included him delivering a fierce criticism of the broadcaster after they quizzed him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. But, the leader avoided a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event.

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

Challenged about if he thought an apology was necessary for his alleged remarks about Jewish students, he stated: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”

Defending the Leader

The peer maintained that the leader is “morally fit” to be the country's leader and rejected claims of dog-whistle politics. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on previous comments about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who are not native English speakers by posing the question to the crowd: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”

While the first minister, John Swinney criticised the initial comments as “discriminatory”, and the Labour leader labeled them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that people are talking about on the doorstep”.

A Party on the Rise

The rally, attended by an lively and passionate audience of predominantly older, white male backers who bought tickets for the event, showcases Reform's increasing self-assurance ahead of the Scottish vote.

Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has made substantial progress in the past year, 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, with support reaching over a fifth.

Announcing that party membership north of the border had increased fourfold in the past year to 12,000 members, 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, a local representative for the party, prompted a roar of approval as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He instructed the crowd to “prepare for a fight” as we take on the political establishment”, warning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.

Despite not yet publishing a distinct policy platform for Scotland, representatives pledged Reform would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.

Farage himself expressed his pleasure at Reform's rise as a significant player 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”.

Local Context

As the event was taking place, a few miles west in the heart of Falkirk, demonstrators with opposing views assembled for a now-regular weekly standoff outside a local hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.

The organisers of the demonstrations stated they were motivated by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. In an interview, First Minister John Swinney warned that “what the far right do is to apportion the blame … to new arrivals 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 “legitimate points” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.