🔗 Share this article

The Reform UK figurehead addressed the biggest the party's public meeting held in Scotland to date, but avoided engaging with the press corps afterwards. In his place, newly defected peer Malcolm Offord took on the task of field questions on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to Farage.

A High-Profile Defection

Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor during a sold-out rally of about 700 attendees at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. The businessman, who worked as a junior minister for Scotland in the previous administration and most recently served as the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, stated his plan to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to stand for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.

The leader stated he was “extremely pleased” to welcome the new member. He called the peer’s defection as “a courageous and significant move”.

Avoiding Media Scrutiny

Farage addressed the rally 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 from his teenage years. However, the leader avoided the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.

When asked why his new party’s leader was not available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”

Pressed on if he thought 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 “morally fit” to be prime minister and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. During his speech, the leader had reiterated 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?”

While Scotland's First Minister condemned the initial comments as “racist”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “harmful and polarising”, the defector argued that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.

Growing Confidence

The rally, filled with an energetic and enthused crowd of predominantly older, white male backers who bought tickets for the event, highlights the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.

Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has made substantial progress in the past year, securing 26% of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, the party has often relegated it to third in recent months, with support reaching over a fifth.

Declaring that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled in the past year to 12,000 members, the party chair, David Bull said he believed it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.

Campaign Rhetoric

Thomas Kerr, a local representative for the party, prompted a roar of approval as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He instructed the crowd to “prepare for a fight” 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 “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.

Farage himself expressed his pleasure at Reform's rise as a significant player in the political scene in Scotland over the past 12 months, admitting to the audience that he was once told he “couldn't fill a small venue”.

Protests Nearby

As the event was taking place, 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 where asylum seekers are now housed.

A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. In an interview, Scotland's leader warned 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 “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.