🔗 Share this article

The Reform UK figurehead addressed the biggest the party's rally so far in Scotland, however avoided engaging with the press corps afterwards. In his place, newly defected member of the House of Lords the former Conservative donor took on the task of responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and antisemitism surrounding Farage.

Welcoming a New Recruit

The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor at 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 most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for the party in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.

Farage said he was “delighted” to greet the new member. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”.

Avoiding Media Scrutiny

The Reform leader spoke to the crowd following a difficult period which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster after they quizzed him about an investigation into alleged racist and remarks from his teenage years. But, the leader avoided a planned media briefing post-rally.

Questioned why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, the new recruit responded: “That is a question for him to answer.”

Challenged about whether he believed Farage should apologise for the comments he is said to have made about Jewish students, he stated: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”

Insisting on Fitness

The peer maintained that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be prime minister and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who are not native English speakers by posing the question to the crowd: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”

While Scotland's First Minister condemned Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “toxic and divisive”, 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 event, attended by an lively and passionate audience of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who each paid £6 to attend, showcases the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.

While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has made substantial progress recently, 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, with support reaching over a fifth.

Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had increased fourfold over the last twelve months to 12,000 members, the party chair, David Bull stated his belief it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” in the Scottish Parliament.

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 instructed the crowd to “man the barricades as we take on the political establishment”, cautioning that “the next five months will be tough”.

Despite not yet publishing any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.

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 he was once told he “couldn't fill a small venue”.

Protests Nearby

Meanwhile, a few miles west in Falkirk town centre, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.

A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated by a serious local crime. In an interview, First Minister John Swinney cautioned that “what the far right do is to apportion the blame … to new arrivals and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.

However, he differentiated extremist opinions and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.