Nigel Farage spoke to the biggest Reform UK rally so far in Scotland, however avoided engaging with the press corps following the event. Instead, recently switched member of the House of Lords the former Conservative donor was left to responding to queries on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to the party leader.
Welcoming a New Recruit
Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman at a sold-out rally of about 700 attendees in a hotel venue in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland under the last government and most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to stand for the party in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
Farage said he was “delighted” to welcome Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
The Reform leader addressed the rally following a difficult period which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him regarding a report into alleged racist and remarks from his teenage years. But, Farage dodged the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.
When asked why Farage was not available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Pressed on whether he believed Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks about Jewish students, Offord said: “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 rejected claims of dog-whistle politics. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about pupils in Glasgow who are not native English speakers by asking the rally: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
Although the first minister, John Swinney criticised the initial comments as “racist”, and the Labour leader called them “harmful and polarising”, the defector argued that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.
Growing Confidence
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 ahead of the Scottish vote.
Although the SNP continues to lead in the polls, Reform UK has made substantial progress recently, securing 26% of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. Following Scottish Labour's decline, the party has often relegated it to third lately, with support reaching over a fifth.
Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled in the past year to a running total of 12,000, a senior party official stated his belief it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, which would place Reform in “a powerful situation” in the Scottish Parliament.
Fighting Talk
A Reform councillor, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, prompted a roar of approval as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He instructed the crowd to “prepare for a fight” as we take on the political establishment”, warning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.
Although the party has yet to produce any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east pledged Reform would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.
Farage himself underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in Scottish politics in the last year, 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 assembled 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 serious local crime. 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 source of a harmful narrative”.
He also made a clear distinction extremist opinions and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
