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The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the largest Reform UK public meeting held in Scotland to date, however declined to speak with local journalists following the event. Instead, recently switched member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord took on the task of responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to the party leader.

A High-Profile Defection

The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman at a packed event of roughly seven hundred supporters in a hotel venue in central Scotland. 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 stand for Reform UK 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 saw him launch a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him about an investigation into alleged racist and remarks as a youth. But, the leader avoided the expected press huddle post-rally.

Questioned why Farage did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”

Challenged about 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.”

Insisting on Fitness

The peer maintained that Farage was “morally fit” to be prime minister and rejected claims of dog-whistle politics. During his speech, the leader had reiterated on his remarks 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 condemned the initial comments as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that “voters are discussing”.

A Party on the Rise

The event, attended by an lively and passionate audience of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who each paid £6 to attend, highlights the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.

While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has gained significant ground recently, achieving a quarter of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. 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, putting the party in “a very strong position” at Holyrood.

Campaign Rhetoric

Thomas Kerr, a local representative for the party, 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”, cautioning that “the next five months will be tough”.

Despite not yet publishing a distinct policy platform for Scotland, speakers from the north-east pledged Reform would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.

Farage himself expressed his pleasure at the party’s emergence as a force in Scottish politics in the last year, admitting to the audience that in previous years he had been warned he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.

Local Context

Meanwhile, a few miles west 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.

A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. In an interview, Scotland's leader warned that the tactic of the far-right is to assign responsibility … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.

However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or community safety.