🔗 Share this article

The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the biggest the party's rally held in Scotland to date, but avoided engaging with local journalists afterwards. Instead, recently switched member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord took on the task of responding to queries on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to the party leader.

A High-Profile Defection

Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and millionaire donor at a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred supporters in a hotel venue in central Scotland. The businessman, who worked as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for Reform UK in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.

Farage said he was “extremely pleased” to greet Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”.

Dodging the Press

The Reform leader spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week 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. However, Farage dodged a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event.

Questioned why Farage did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations about his past behaviour, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”

Pressed on whether he believed an apology was necessary 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

The peer maintained that Farage was “ethically suitable” 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 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 “toxic and divisive”, the defector argued that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.

A Party on the Rise

The event, filled with an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who each paid £6 to attend, highlights the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.

Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has gained significant ground in the past year, 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 in recent months, with support reaching over a fifth.

Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had increased fourfold over the last twelve months to a running total of 12,000, the party chair, David Bull said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” in the Scottish Parliament.

Fighting Talk

A Reform councillor, a local representative for the party, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He instructed the crowd to “man the barricades as we take on the political establishment”, cautioning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.

Although the party has yet to produce any Scotland-specific policies, representatives vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.

The leader personally underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in the political scene in Scotland over the past 12 months, admitting to the audience that in previous years he had been warned he “couldn't fill a small venue”.

Protests Nearby

As the event was taking place, a few miles west in the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.

The organisers of the demonstrations stated they were motivated by a serious local crime. Speaking previously, Scotland's leader cautioned that “what the far right do is to assign responsibility … to asylum seekers or migrants 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 community safety.