Nigel Farage spoke to the biggest the party's public meeting held in Scotland to date, however avoided engaging with the press corps following the event. Instead, recently switched peer the former Conservative donor was left to field questions on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding Farage.
Welcoming a New Recruit
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor at a packed event of about 700 attendees at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland under the last government and most recently served as the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to stand for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.
Farage said he was “extremely pleased” to greet the new member. He described the switch as “a brave and historic act”.
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 antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. However, the leader avoided a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event.
Questioned why his new party’s leader was not available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Pressed on whether he believed Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks about Jewish students, he stated: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Defending the Leader
The peer maintained that the leader is “morally fit” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing coded political messaging. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who are not native English speakers by asking the rally: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
While Scotland's First Minister condemned the initial comments as “racist”, and Keir Starmer called them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that his new leader was “drawing attention to a real concern” that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
A Party on the Rise
The event, attended by an lively and passionate audience of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who each paid £6 to attend, highlights Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.
Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has gained significant ground in the past year, achieving a quarter of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. Following Scottish Labour's decline, the party has often relegated it to third in recent months, with support reaching over a fifth.
Declaring that party membership north of the border had increased fourfold in the past year to a running total of 12,000, the party chair, David Bull stated his belief it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, putting the party in “a very strong position” at Holyrood.
Fighting Talk
A Reform councillor, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, prompted a roar of approval as he referred to the leader as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He told supporters to “man the barricades as we “challenge the ruling class”, warning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.
Despite not yet publishing any Scotland-specific policies, representatives vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.
Farage himself 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”.
Local Context
Meanwhile, not far away in Falkirk town centre, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering 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 serious local crime. Speaking previously, First Minister John Swinney warned that the tactic of the far-right is to assign responsibility … to new arrivals and I think that is the root of the poison”.
He also made a clear distinction extremist opinions and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
