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Nigel Farage spoke to the largest Reform UK public meeting so far in Scotland, but declined to speak with local journalists following the event. Instead, recently switched peer the former Conservative donor took on the task of responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and antisemitism surrounding the party leader.

Welcoming a New Recruit

Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and millionaire donor at a sold-out rally of about 700 supporters in a hotel venue in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and was until recently treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to become a candidate for the party 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 addressed the rally following a difficult period which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC for questioning him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and remarks as a youth. However, Farage dodged a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event.

When asked 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 if he thought an apology was necessary for the comments he is said to have made towards Jewish pupils, Offord said: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”

Defending the Leader

The peer maintained that Farage was “morally fit” to be prime minister and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. While addressing supporters, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who speak English as a second language by posing the question to the crowd: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”

While the first minister, John Swinney condemned Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and Keir Starmer called them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.

Growing Confidence

The event, attended by an energetic and enthused crowd of predominantly older, white male backers who bought tickets for the event, highlights the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.

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. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, the party has often relegated it to third lately, polling up to 22%.

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 stated his belief it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, which would place Reform in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.

Fighting Talk

Thomas Kerr, a local representative for the party, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “the future PM of the UK”. He instructed the crowd to “prepare for a fight” as we “challenge the ruling class”, cautioning that “the next five months will be tough”.

Although the party has yet to produce a distinct policy platform for Scotland, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.

Farage himself underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in the political scene in Scotland in the last year, admitting to the audience that in previous years he had been warned he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.

Local Context

Meanwhile, a few miles west in the heart of Falkirk, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering for a now-regular weekly standoff outside a local hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.

A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. Speaking previously, First Minister John Swinney warned that the tactic of the far-right is to apportion the blame … 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.