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The Reform UK figurehead addressed the largest Reform UK public meeting held in Scotland to date, but declined to speak with local journalists following the event. In his place, recently switched member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord was left to responding to queries on allegations of racism and antisemitism linked to the party leader.

Welcoming a New Recruit

The leader presented the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman during a sold-out rally of about 700 attendees in a hotel venue in central Scotland. The businessman, who worked as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to become a candidate for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.

Farage said he was “delighted” to greet the new member. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”.

Dodging the Press

The Reform leader addressed the rally following a difficult period which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC for questioning him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. But, the leader avoided the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.

Questioned why Farage was not available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”

Challenged about whether he believed an apology was necessary for the comments he is said to have made towards Jewish pupils, he stated: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”

Insisting on Fitness

Offord insisted that the leader is “morally fit” to be prime minister and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. While addressing supporters, Farage had doubled down on previous comments about pupils in Glasgow who speak English as a second language by asking the rally: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”

While Scotland's First Minister criticised the initial comments as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.

Growing Confidence

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 before next May’s elections.

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. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place lately, polling up to 22%.

Declaring that party membership north of the border had quadrupled in the past year to 12,000 members, a senior party official said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” in the Scottish Parliament.

Fighting Talk

A Reform councillor, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “the future PM of the UK”. He told supporters to “man the barricades as we “challenge the ruling class”, warning that “the next five months will be tough”.

Although the party has yet to produce any Scotland-specific policies, representatives 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, confessing to supporters that he was once told 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 used to accommodate asylum seekers.

The organisers of the demonstrations said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. In an interview, First Minister John Swinney cautioned that “what the far right do is to assign responsibility … to new arrivals 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.