🔗 Share this article

Nigel Farage spoke to the largest the party's rally held in Scotland to date, however declined to speak with the press corps afterwards. Instead, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor took on the task of field questions on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding the party leader.

A High-Profile Defection

Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman during a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland in the previous administration and most recently served as 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 Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection as “a courageous and significant move”.

Dodging the Press

Farage addressed the rally following a difficult period which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster after they quizzed him about an investigation into alleged racist and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. But, the leader avoided a planned media briefing post-rally.

When asked why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to address growing claims 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.”

Defending the Leader

The peer maintained that the leader is “ethically suitable” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing coded political messaging. During his speech, the leader had reiterated on previous comments about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who are not native English speakers by posing the question to the crowd: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”

Although Scotland's First Minister condemned the initial comments as “discriminatory”, 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 rally, attended by an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who bought tickets for the event, showcases Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.

While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has made substantial progress in the past year, 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 lately, with support reaching over a fifth.

Announcing that party membership north of the border had increased fourfold over the last twelve months to a running total of 12,000, the party chair, David Bull said he believed it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.

Fighting Talk

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”, cautioning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.

Despite not yet publishing any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.

The leader personally expressed his pleasure at the party’s emergence as a force in the political scene in Scotland in the last year, confessing to supporters 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 the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters were gathering for a now-regular weekly standoff outside a local hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.

A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated by a serious local crime. Speaking previously, First Minister John Swinney warned 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”.

He also made a clear distinction extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.