The Reform UK figurehead addressed the largest Reform UK public meeting held in Scotland to date, however avoided engaging with local journalists following the event. In his place, recently switched peer the former Conservative donor was left to responding to queries on allegations of racism and antisemitism surrounding Farage.
Welcoming a New Recruit
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman during a packed event of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to become a candidate for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.
Farage said he was “extremely pleased” to welcome Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
Farage addressed the rally after a turbulent week which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. But, Farage dodged the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.
Questioned why his new party’s leader was not available to answer mounting allegations about his past behaviour, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”
Pressed on whether he believed an apology was necessary for the comments he is said to have made about Jewish students, Offord said: “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 prime minister and denied he was employing 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?”
While Scotland's First Minister criticised Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and the Labour leader called them “harmful and polarising”, the defector argued that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.
Growing Confidence
The event, attended by an energetic and enthused crowd of predominantly older, white male backers who each paid £6 to attend, showcases the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.
While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has gained significant ground in the past year, achieving a quarter 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, with support reaching over a fifth.
Announcing that party membership north of the border had increased fourfold in the past year to 12,000 members, a senior party official said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, putting the party in “a very strong position” in the Scottish Parliament.
Fighting Talk
Thomas Kerr, a local representative for the party, elicited loud cheers as he referred to the leader as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He instructed the crowd to “man the barricades as we take on the political establishment”, warning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.
Despite not yet publishing any Scotland-specific policies, 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 over the past 12 months, admitting to the audience 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 the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters were gathering for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.
A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. Speaking previously, Scotland's leader cautioned that the tactic of the far-right is to assign responsibility … 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.
