🔗 Share this article

Nigel Farage addressed the biggest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, however avoided engaging with the press corps afterwards. Instead, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor 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 in a hotel venue near Falkirk. The businessman, who worked as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and was until recently the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, announced his intention 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 greet Offord to the party. He described the switch as “a courageous and significant move”.

Dodging the Press

Farage addressed the rally after a turbulent week which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC for questioning him about an investigation into alleged racist and remarks from his teenage years. However, Farage dodged the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.

When asked why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations about his past behaviour, the new recruit responded: “That is a question for him to answer.”

Pressed on if he thought Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks about Jewish students, Offord said: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”

Insisting on Fitness

Offord insisted that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be prime minister and rejected claims of dog-whistle politics. During his speech, 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?”

Although Scotland's First Minister condemned the initial comments as “racist”, and Keir Starmer called them “toxic and divisive”, the defector argued that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that people are talking about on the doorstep”.

A Party on the Rise

The rally, filled with an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who bought tickets for the event, showcases the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.

Although the SNP continues to lead in the polls, 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, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place lately, polling up to 22%.

Declaring that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled over the last twelve months to a running total of 12,000, the party chair, David Bull stated his belief it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” in the Scottish Parliament.

Fighting Talk

Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, 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 any Scotland-specific policies, representatives vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.

The leader personally 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 “couldn't fill a small venue”.

Local Context

Meanwhile, 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 said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. In an interview, First Minister John Swinney warned that the tactic of the far-right is to apportion the blame … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.

However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.