The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the biggest the party's rally held in Scotland to date, however avoided engaging with local journalists following the event. Instead, recently switched peer Malcolm Offord was left to field questions on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to Farage.
Welcoming a New Recruit
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor at a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred supporters at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. The businessman, who worked as a junior minister for Scotland under the last government and most recently served as the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for the party in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
Farage said he was “extremely pleased” to welcome Offord to the party. He described the switch as “a courageous and significant move”.
Dodging the Press
Farage addressed the rally 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 as a youth. But, Farage dodged a planned media briefing post-rally.
Questioned why Farage did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations about his past behaviour, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Pressed on whether he believed Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks towards Jewish pupils, Offord said: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Insisting on Fitness
Offord insisted that Farage was “morally fit” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on previous comments about pupils in Glasgow who are not native English speakers by posing the question to the crowd: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
Although Scotland's First Minister criticised the initial comments as “racist”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “harmful and polarising”, the defector argued that his new leader was “drawing attention to a real concern” that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
Growing Confidence
The event, filled with an lively and passionate audience of predominantly older, white male backers who each paid £6 to attend, showcases the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.
Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has gained significant ground in the past year, securing 26% of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. Following Scottish Labour's decline, the party has often relegated it to third in recent months, with support reaching over a fifth.
Declaring that Reform UK membership in Scotland had increased fourfold in the past year to a running total of 12,000, a senior party official stated his belief it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” at Holyrood.
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 “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, representatives pledged Reform would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.
Farage himself 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
As the event was taking place, a few miles west in Falkirk town centre, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering for a now-regular weekly standoff 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 new arrivals and I think that is the root of the poison”.
However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or community safety.
