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Nigel Farage spoke to the largest the party's public meeting held in Scotland to date, however avoided engaging with the press corps following the event. In his place, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor took on the task of responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and antisemitism surrounding Farage.

Welcoming a New Recruit

Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman during a packed event of roughly seven hundred supporters at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and was until recently the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to stand for the party in next May’s Holyrood elections.

The leader stated he was “delighted” to welcome the new member. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”.

Dodging the Press

Farage addressed the rally after a turbulent week which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC for questioning him regarding a report into alleged racist and remarks from his teenage years. But, the leader avoided the expected press huddle post-rally.

When asked why his new party’s leader was not available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, 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 towards Jewish pupils, he stated: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”

Defending the Leader

Offord insisted that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. While addressing supporters, Farage had doubled down 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 Scotland's First Minister condemned Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and the Labour leader called them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.

Growing Confidence

The event, filled with an lively and passionate audience of predominantly older, white male backers who bought tickets for the event, showcases Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.

While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has made substantial progress in the past year, 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.

Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled in the past year to a running total of 12,000, 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

Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He told supporters to “man the barricades as we take on the political establishment”, 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 “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.

Farage himself underlined his delight at Reform's rise as a significant player in Scottish politics in the last year, admitting to the audience that in previous years he had been warned he “couldn't fill a small venue”.

Local Context

As the event was taking place, not far away in Falkirk town centre, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for a now-regular weekly standoff near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.

A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. In an interview, First Minister John Swinney warned that the tactic of the far-right is to assign responsibility … 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 “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.