Nigel Farage spoke to the largest the party's rally so far in Scotland, but declined to speak with the press corps following the event. Instead, newly defected member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord was left to responding to queries 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 during a sold-out rally of about 700 supporters at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland in the previous administration and was until recently treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate 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 brave and historic act”.
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 alleged racist and remarks as a youth. However, the leader avoided the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.
When asked why Farage was not available to answer mounting allegations about his past behaviour, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”
Pressed on if he thought an apology was necessary for his alleged remarks towards Jewish pupils, he stated: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”
Insisting on Fitness
The peer maintained that the leader is “morally fit” to be prime minister and denied he was employing coded political messaging. During his speech, the leader had reiterated on his remarks about pupils in Glasgow who speak English as a second language by asking the rally: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
Although Scotland's First Minister condemned Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and the Labour leader called them “toxic and divisive”, the defector argued that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue 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 each paid £6 to attend, highlights the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.
While the SNP continues to lead in the polls, the party has made substantial progress in the past year, securing 26% of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. Following Scottish Labour's decline, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place in recent months, with support reaching over a fifth.
Announcing that party membership north of the border had increased fourfold in the past year to a running total of 12,000, the party chair, David Bull stated his belief it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” at Holyrood.
Fighting Talk
Thomas Kerr, a local representative for the party, elicited loud cheers as he referred to the leader 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”.
Despite not yet publishing any Scotland-specific policies, representatives 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 in previous years he had been warned he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Local Context
As the event was taking place, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, demonstrators with opposing views assembled for a now-regular weekly standoff near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
The organisers of the demonstrations said it was galvanised 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 root of the poison”.
He also made a clear distinction extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
