🔗 Share this article

Nigel Farage spoke to the biggest Reform UK rally so far in Scotland, but declined to speak with the press corps following the event. In his place, recently switched peer the former Conservative donor took on the task of field questions on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding Farage.

A High-Profile Defection

Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman during a packed event of roughly seven hundred attendees in a hotel venue in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland under the last government and was until recently treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for the party in next May’s Holyrood elections.

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

Dodging the Press

Farage spoke to the crowd following a difficult period which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster after they quizzed him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and remarks from his teenage years. However, the leader avoided the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.

When asked why Farage was not available to address growing claims concerning his history, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”

Pressed on whether he believed Farage should apologise for the comments he is said to have made 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 prime minister 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 posing the question to the crowd: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”

Although the first minister, John Swinney criticised Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer called them “harmful and polarising”, the defector argued that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.

A Party on the Rise

The rally, filled with an energetic and enthused crowd of predominantly older, white male backers who bought tickets for the event, showcases Reform's increasing self-assurance ahead of the Scottish vote.

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

Announcing that party membership north of the border 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, 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 referred to the leader as “the future PM of the UK”. He told supporters to “prepare for a fight” as we take on the political establishment”, cautioning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.

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”.

The leader personally underlined his delight at Reform's rise as a significant player in Scottish politics over the past 12 months, confessing to supporters that in previous years he had been warned he “couldn't fill a small venue”.

Protests Nearby

Meanwhile, a few miles west in Falkirk town centre, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering for what have become regular weekly confrontations 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 warned that the tactic of the far-right is to assign responsibility … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.

However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.