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Nigel Farage addressed the biggest Reform UK public meeting so far in Scotland, however declined to speak with the press corps afterwards. In his place, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor was left to responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to the party leader.

Welcoming a New Recruit

Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and millionaire donor during a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland in the previous administration and was until recently the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for Reform UK in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.

The leader stated he was “delighted” to welcome the new member. He described the switch as “a courageous and significant move”.

Avoiding Media Scrutiny

The Reform leader spoke to the crowd following a difficult period which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC for questioning him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and remarks as a youth. However, Farage dodged the expected press huddle post-rally.

Questioned why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations about his past behaviour, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”

Challenged about if he thought an apology was necessary for his alleged remarks about Jewish students, Offord said: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”

Insisting on Fitness

The peer maintained that the leader is “morally fit” to be prime minister and rejected claims of dog-whistle politics. While addressing supporters, the leader had reiterated on previous comments about pupils in Glasgow who are not native English speakers by posing the question to the crowd: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”

While Scotland's First Minister condemned the initial comments as “racist”, and Keir Starmer called 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, attended by an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who bought tickets for the event, highlights Reform's increasing self-assurance ahead of the Scottish vote.

While the SNP continues to lead in the polls, the party 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, polling up to 22%.

Announcing that party membership north of the border had increased fourfold in the past year to a running total of 12,000, a senior party official said he believed it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, putting the party in “a very strong position” at Holyrood.

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 take on the political establishment”, warning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.

Although the party has yet to produce any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east pledged Reform would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.

Farage himself 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 he was once told he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.

Local Context

As the event was taking place, a few miles west in the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters were gathering for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a 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 new arrivals 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 “valid concerns” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.