🔗 Share this article

The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the biggest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, however declined to speak with the press corps afterwards. In his place, recently switched member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord was left to responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding Farage.

A High-Profile Defection

The leader presented the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman during a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. The businessman, who worked as a junior minister for Scotland in the previous administration and was until recently the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to stand for Reform UK in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.

Farage said he was “delighted” to greet the new member. He called the peer’s defection as “a courageous and significant move”.

Dodging the Press

Farage addressed the rally after a turbulent week which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him regarding a report into alleged racist and remarks as a youth. However, the leader avoided a planned media briefing post-rally.

Questioned why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations about his past behaviour, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”

Challenged about if he thought Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks towards Jewish pupils, he stated: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”

Defending the Leader

Offord insisted that the leader is “morally fit” to be the country's leader and rejected claims of dog-whistle politics. During his speech, the leader had reiterated on previous comments 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 the first minister, John Swinney criticised 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 rally, filled with an energetic and enthused crowd of predominantly older, white male backers who bought tickets for the event, highlights Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.

Although 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, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place lately, with support reaching over a fifth.

Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled in the past year to 12,000 members, the party chair, David Bull said he believed it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, putting the party in “a very strong position” in the Scottish Parliament.

Fighting Talk

Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He instructed the crowd to “prepare for a fight” as we “challenge the ruling class”, warning that “the next five months will be tough”.

Although the party has yet to produce a distinct policy platform for Scotland, representatives vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.

The leader personally 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 he was once told he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.

Protests Nearby

Meanwhile, not far away in Falkirk town centre, demonstrators with opposing views assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations outside a local hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.

A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. Speaking previously, First Minister John Swinney cautioned that the tactic of the far-right is to apportion the blame … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the root of the poison”.

However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “legitimate points” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.