🔗 Share this article

Nigel Farage addressed the largest the party's rally held in Scotland to date, but declined to speak with local journalists afterwards. In his place, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor took on the task of field questions on allegations of racism and antisemitism linked to Farage.

Welcoming a New Recruit

The leader presented the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman during a sold-out rally of about 700 attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland under the last government and was until recently the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, announced his intention to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to stand for the party in next May’s Holyrood elections.

Farage said he was “extremely pleased” to welcome Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection as “a courageous and significant move”.

Dodging the Press

The Reform leader addressed the rally after a turbulent week which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC for questioning him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and remarks as a youth. But, the leader avoided the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.

Questioned why Farage did not make himself available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”

Pressed on if he thought Farage should apologise for the comments he is said to have made towards Jewish pupils, Offord said: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”

Defending the Leader

Offord insisted that the leader is “morally fit” to be prime minister and denied he was employing coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, the leader had reiterated on previous comments 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 the first minister, John Swinney criticised Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer called them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that his new leader was “drawing attention to a real concern” that “voters are discussing”.

A Party on the Rise

The event, filled with an lively and passionate audience of predominantly older, white male backers who each paid £6 to attend, highlights Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.

Although the SNP continues to lead in the polls, Reform UK has gained significant ground in the past year, achieving a quarter of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. Following Scottish Labour's decline, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place lately, with support reaching over a fifth.

Declaring that party membership north of the border had increased fourfold in the past year to a running total of 12,000, a senior party official stated his belief it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, putting the party 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 “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 a distinct policy platform for Scotland, representatives pledged Reform would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.

Farage himself underlined his delight at Reform's rise as a significant player in the political scene in Scotland in the last year, admitting to the audience that in previous years he had been warned he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.

Protests Nearby

Meanwhile, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters were gathering for a now-regular weekly standoff outside a local 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, Scotland's leader cautioned that “what the far right do is to assign responsibility … to new arrivals and I think that is the root of the poison”.

He also made a clear distinction between those who hold far-right views and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or community safety.