The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the largest Reform UK public meeting so far in Scotland, however avoided engaging with the press corps afterwards. Instead, recently switched peer the former Conservative donor took on the task of responding to queries on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to Farage.
A High-Profile Defection
The leader presented the former Conservative peer and millionaire donor 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 in the previous administration and was until recently the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, 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.
The leader stated he was “extremely pleased” to greet the new member. He described the switch as “a courageous and significant move”.
Dodging the Press
The Reform leader spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC for questioning him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and remarks from his teenage years. But, the leader avoided the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.
Questioned why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”
Pressed on whether he believed Farage should apologise for the comments he is said to have made about Jewish students, he stated: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”
Insisting on Fitness
The peer maintained that the leader is “ethically suitable” to be the country's leader and rejected claims of dog-whistle politics. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about pupils in Glasgow who speak English as a second language by posing the question to the crowd: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”
While the first minister, John Swinney condemned the initial comments as “racist”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “harmful and polarising”, the defector argued that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.
A Party on the Rise
The rally, filled with an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who bought tickets for the event, highlights the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.
While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has made substantial progress recently, securing 26% of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. Following Scottish Labour's decline, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place in recent months, with support reaching over a fifth.
Declaring that Reform UK membership in Scotland had increased fourfold in the past year to 12,000 members, a senior party official stated his belief it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.
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 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 pledged Reform would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.
Farage himself underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in Scottish politics in the last year, admitting to the audience that he was once told he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.
Local Context
Meanwhile, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering for what have become regular weekly confrontations outside a local hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.
A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. In an interview, Scotland's leader warned that “what the far right do is to assign responsibility … to new arrivals and I think that is the root of the poison”.
However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
