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Nigel Farage addressed the largest Reform UK public meeting held in Scotland to date, but avoided engaging with local journalists following the event. In his place, newly defected member of the House of Lords the former Conservative donor took on the task of responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and antisemitism surrounding the party leader.

Welcoming a New Recruit

Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman during a packed event of about 700 attendees at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland in the previous administration and most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to stand for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.

Farage said he was “delighted” to welcome the new member. He called the peer’s defection as “a courageous and significant move”.

Dodging the Press

Farage spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. However, Farage dodged the expected press huddle post-rally.

When asked why his new party’s leader was not available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”

Challenged about whether he believed Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks towards Jewish pupils, Offord said: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”

Defending the Leader

The peer maintained that the leader is “ethically suitable” to be the country's leader and rejected claims of coded political messaging. During his speech, the leader had reiterated on previous comments about pupils in Glasgow who are not native English speakers by asking the rally: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”

While Scotland's First Minister condemned Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “toxic and divisive”, the defector argued that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.

A Party on the Rise

The rally, filled with an energetic and enthused crowd of predominantly older, white male backers who bought tickets for the event, highlights the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.

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, polling up to 22%.

Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had increased fourfold over the last twelve months to 12,000 members, 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” at Holyrood.

Campaign Rhetoric

A Reform councillor, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He told supporters to “prepare for a fight” as we take on the political establishment”, warning that “the next five months will be tough”.

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

The leader personally underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in the political scene in Scotland in the last year, admitting to the audience that he was once told he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.

Local Context

As the event was taking place, a few miles west in Falkirk town centre, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.

The organisers of the demonstrations stated they were motivated by a serious local crime. In an interview, First Minister John Swinney warned that “what the far right do is to assign responsibility … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.

However, he differentiated extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.