🔗 Share this article

The Reform UK figurehead addressed the largest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, but avoided engaging with local journalists afterwards. In his place, newly defected member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord was left to field questions on allegations of racism and antisemitism linked to Farage.

Welcoming a New Recruit

The leader presented the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman during a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred supporters in a hotel venue near Falkirk. The businessman, who worked as a junior minister for Scotland in the previous administration and was until recently treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to stand for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.

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

Dodging the Press

Farage spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week which included him delivering a fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him about an investigation into alleged racist and remarks as a youth. But, Farage dodged the expected press huddle post-rally.

When asked why Farage was not available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”

Challenged about whether he believed an apology was necessary for the comments he is said to have made about Jewish students, he stated: “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 prime minister and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about pupils in Glasgow who speak English as a second language by posing the question to the crowd: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”

While Scotland's First Minister criticised the initial comments as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.

A Party on the Rise

The rally, 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 Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has gained significant ground recently, achieving a quarter of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place lately, with support reaching over a fifth.

Declaring that party membership north of the border 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, putting the party in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.

Fighting Talk

Thomas Kerr, a local representative for the party, elicited loud cheers as he referred to the leader as “the future PM of the UK”. He told supporters to “man the barricades 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, representatives pledged Reform would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.

Farage himself expressed his pleasure at Reform's rise as a significant player in the political scene in Scotland in the last year, confessing to supporters that he was once told he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.

Local Context

Meanwhile, not far away in Falkirk town centre, demonstrators with opposing views assembled for a now-regular weekly standoff outside a local hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.

A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. 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 root of the poison”.

However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.