Nigel Farage addressed the biggest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, but declined to speak with the press corps afterwards. Instead, recently switched peer Malcolm Offord was left to field questions on allegations of racism and antisemitism linked to Farage.
Welcoming a New Recruit
Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and millionaire donor during a packed event of about 700 attendees at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. The businessman, who worked as a junior minister for Scotland under the last government and was until recently the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, stated his plan to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to become a candidate for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.
The leader stated he was “delighted” to greet the new member. He described the switch as “a brave and historic act”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
The Reform leader spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him about an investigation into alleged racist and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. However, the leader avoided a planned media briefing post-rally.
When asked why Farage did not make himself 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 the comments he is said to have made towards Jewish pupils, he stated: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Defending the Leader
The peer maintained that the leader is “morally fit” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. While addressing supporters, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about pupils in Glasgow who speak English as a second language by posing the question to the crowd: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”
While Scotland's First Minister condemned the initial comments as “racist”, and the Labour leader called them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained 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 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 made substantial progress in the past year, securing 26% of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, the party has often relegated it to third lately, polling up to 22%.
Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled over the last twelve months to 12,000 members, a senior party official stated his belief it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, which would place Reform in “a powerful situation” in the Scottish Parliament.
Fighting Talk
Thomas Kerr, a local representative for the party, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. 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 a distinct policy platform for Scotland, speakers from the north-east vowed the party 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”.
Protests Nearby
Meanwhile, a few miles west in the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters were gathering for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.
A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. In an interview, Scotland's leader cautioned that the tactic of the far-right is to assign responsibility … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.
He also made a clear distinction extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
