The Reform UK figurehead addressed the largest Reform UK public meeting so far in Scotland, but declined to speak with the press corps afterwards. In his place, recently switched peer the former Conservative donor was left to field questions on allegations of racism and antisemitism linked to the party leader.
A High-Profile Defection
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor at a packed event of roughly seven hundred supporters in a hotel venue 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 become a candidate for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.
The leader stated he was “extremely pleased” to greet the new member. He described the switch as “a courageous and significant move”.
Dodging the Press
Farage spoke to the crowd following a difficult period which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him about an investigation into alleged racist and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. But, the leader avoided a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event.
When asked why his new party’s leader was not available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”
Pressed on if he thought 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.”
Insisting on Fitness
Offord insisted that Farage was “morally fit” to be the country's leader and rejected claims of coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, the leader had reiterated on previous comments about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who speak English as a second language by asking the rally: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
While Scotland's First Minister condemned the initial comments as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that “voters are discussing”.
A Party on the Rise
The rally, filled with an energetic and enthused crowd of predominantly older, white male backers who each paid £6 to attend, showcases Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.
While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has made substantial progress in the past year, achieving a quarter of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. Following Scottish Labour's decline, the party has often relegated it to third lately, polling up to 22%.
Declaring that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled in the past year to 12,000 members, a senior party official said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, which would place Reform in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.
Campaign Rhetoric
A Reform councillor, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, prompted a roar of approval 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, 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, admitting to the audience 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 where asylum seekers are now housed.
A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. In an interview, Scotland's leader warned that the tactic of the far-right is to assign responsibility … to new arrivals and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.
He also made a clear distinction between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.
