Nigel Farage addressed the largest the party's rally held in Scotland to date, but avoided engaging with local journalists following the event. Instead, recently switched member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord was left to field questions on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to Farage.
A High-Profile Defection
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman at a packed event of about 700 supporters at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for the party in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
Farage said he was “delighted” to welcome the new member. He described the switch as “a courageous and significant move”.
Dodging the Press
The Reform leader spoke to the crowd following a difficult period which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him about an investigation into alleged racist and remarks from his teenage years. But, the leader avoided a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event.
When asked why Farage 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 the comments he is said to have made towards Jewish pupils, he stated: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Insisting on Fitness
The peer maintained that Farage was “morally fit” to be prime minister and rejected claims of coded political messaging. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on previous comments about pupils in Glasgow who are not native English speakers by asking the rally: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”
Although Scotland's First Minister criticised the initial comments as “racist”, and Keir Starmer called them “toxic and divisive”, the defector argued that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that “voters are discussing”.
A Party on the Rise
The event, filled with an lively and passionate audience of predominantly older, white male backers who each paid £6 to attend, showcases 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 its first Holyrood byelection test. 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 a running total of 12,000, a senior party official said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” at Holyrood.
Campaign Rhetoric
A Reform councillor, a local representative for the party, prompted a roar of approval as he described Farage as “the future PM of the UK”. He told supporters to “man the barricades as we take on the political establishment”, warning that “the next five months will be tough”.
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”.
Farage himself underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in the political scene in Scotland in the last year, admitting to the audience that in previous years he had been warned he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Local Context
As the event was taking place, not far away in Falkirk town centre, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated 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 root of the poison”.
However, he differentiated extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or community safety.
