🔗 Share this article

Nigel Farage addressed the largest the party's public meeting held in Scotland to date, but avoided engaging with the press corps afterwards. In his place, recently switched peer Malcolm Offord took on the task of responding to queries on allegations of racism and antisemitism surrounding the party leader.

Welcoming a New Recruit

The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor during a packed event of roughly seven hundred attendees in a hotel venue near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and was until recently the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to stand for the party in next May’s Holyrood elections.

The leader stated he was “extremely pleased” to greet Offord to the party. He described the switch as “a brave and historic act”.

Avoiding Media Scrutiny

Farage spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week which included him delivering a fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him regarding a report into alleged racist and remarks as a youth. But, the leader avoided the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.

Questioned 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.”

Challenged about whether he believed an apology was necessary for his alleged remarks towards Jewish pupils, he stated: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”

Insisting on Fitness

Offord insisted that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be the country's leader and rejected claims of coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, 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?”

While the first minister, John Swinney criticised Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and Keir Starmer labeled 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 rally, filled with an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who each paid £6 to attend, showcases the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.

While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has gained significant ground recently, achieving a quarter 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 in recent months, with support reaching over a fifth.

Declaring 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 win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” at Holyrood.

Fighting Talk

A Reform councillor, a local representative for the party, elicited loud cheers as he referred to the leader as “Britain’s next prime minister”. 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 any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.

The leader personally expressed his pleasure at Reform's rise as a significant player in Scottish politics in the last year, confessing to supporters that he was once told 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 source of a harmful narrative”.

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.