The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the biggest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, but avoided engaging with local journalists following the event. In his place, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor was left to responding to queries on allegations of racism 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 roughly seven hundred supporters at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and was until recently treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for the party in next May’s Holyrood elections.
Farage said he was “delighted” to welcome Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
The Reform leader spoke to the crowd following a difficult period which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. However, Farage dodged a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event.
Questioned why his new party’s leader was not available to address growing claims 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: “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 the country's leader and rejected claims of coded political messaging. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren 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?”
Although the first minister, John Swinney condemned Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and the Labour leader 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 event, attended by an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who bought tickets for the event, showcases the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.
Although the SNP continues to lead in the polls, Reform UK has made substantial progress recently, securing 26% of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. Following Scottish Labour's decline, the party has often relegated it to third lately, 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 stated his belief it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” at Holyrood.
Campaign Rhetoric
Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he referred to the leader as “the future PM of the UK”. He instructed the crowd to “prepare for a fight” as we “challenge the ruling class”, warning that “the next five months will be tough”.
Despite not yet publishing any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.
The leader personally expressed his pleasure at Reform's rise as a significant player 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”.
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 near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
The organisers of the demonstrations 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 assign responsibility … to new arrivals and I think that is the root of the poison”.
He also made a clear distinction extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about strain on public services or community safety.
