Nigel Farage spoke to the largest the party's rally so far in Scotland, but avoided engaging with the press corps afterwards. Instead, newly defected peer Malcolm Offord was left to responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and antisemitism linked to the party leader.
A High-Profile Defection
The leader presented the former Conservative peer and millionaire donor during a sold-out rally of about 700 attendees in a hotel venue in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and most recently served as the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, announced his intention 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 “delighted” to welcome Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection as “a courageous and significant move”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
The Reform leader addressed the rally after a turbulent week which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC for questioning him regarding a report into alleged racist and remarks as a youth. But, the leader avoided a planned media briefing post-rally.
Questioned why his new party’s leader was not available to answer mounting allegations about his past behaviour, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Pressed on whether he believed an apology was necessary for his alleged remarks about Jewish students, Offord said: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”
Defending the Leader
The peer maintained that Farage was “morally fit” to be prime minister and rejected claims of dog-whistle politics. While addressing supporters, the leader had reiterated on his remarks about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who speak English as a second language by asking the rally: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
Although the first minister, John Swinney criticised the initial comments as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “harmful and polarising”, the defector argued that his new leader was “drawing attention to a real concern” that “voters are discussing”.
A Party on the Rise
The rally, filled with an lively and passionate audience of predominantly older, white male backers who bought tickets for the event, showcases the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.
While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has made substantial progress 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, polling up to 22%.
Announcing that party membership north of the border had quadrupled 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, which would place Reform in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.
Fighting Talk
Thomas Kerr, a local representative for the party, prompted a roar of approval as he referred to the leader as “the future PM of the UK”. He instructed the crowd to “man the barricades as we “challenge the ruling class”, warning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.
Although the party has yet to produce a distinct policy platform for Scotland, speakers from the north-east pledged Reform would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.
The leader personally underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in Scottish politics in the last year, confessing to supporters that in previous years he had been warned he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.
Protests Nearby
As the event was taking place, not far away in Falkirk town centre, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations outside a local hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.
A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated by a serious local crime. In an interview, First Minister John Swinney warned that “what the far right do is to apportion the blame … to new arrivals and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.
However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
