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The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the largest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, however declined to speak with local journalists afterwards. In his place, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor was left to responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and antisemitism surrounding Farage.

Welcoming a New Recruit

Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman during a sold-out rally of about 700 attendees in a hotel venue near Falkirk. The businessman, who worked as a junior minister for Scotland under the last government and was until recently treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for Reform UK in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.

Farage said he was “extremely pleased” to greet 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 saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him regarding a report into alleged racist and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. However, Farage dodged the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.

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

Challenged about whether he believed Farage should apologise 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

Offord insisted 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 voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”

While Scotland's First Minister condemned Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and the Labour leader labeled them “toxic and divisive”, the defector argued that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.

A Party on the Rise

The event, filled with an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who bought tickets for the event, highlights 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 a recent parliamentary by-election. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place in recent months, with support reaching over a fifth.

Declaring that party membership north of the border had quadrupled in the past year to 12,000 members, the party chair, David Bull stated his belief it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” in the Scottish Parliament.

Campaign Rhetoric

Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He told supporters to “prepare for a fight” as we take on the political establishment”, warning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.

Although the party has yet to produce a distinct policy platform for Scotland, representatives vowed the party would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.

The leader personally underlined his delight at Reform's rise as a significant player in the political scene in Scotland in the last year, 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 the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters were gathering for what have become regular weekly confrontations outside a local hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.

The organisers of the demonstrations said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. In an interview, First Minister John Swinney cautioned that “what the far right do is to assign responsibility … to asylum seekers or migrants 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 “legitimate points” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.