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The Reform UK figurehead addressed the biggest the party's public meeting held in Scotland to date, but declined to speak with the press corps following the event. In his place, recently switched peer the former Conservative donor took on the task of responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding the party leader.

Welcoming a New Recruit

The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor during a packed event of roughly seven hundred attendees in a hotel venue near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and was until recently treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to stand for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.

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

Dodging the Press

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 alleged racist and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. But, the leader avoided the expected press huddle post-rally.

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

Insisting on Fitness

The peer maintained that Farage was “morally fit” to be prime minister and denied he was employing coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, 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?”

Although Scotland's First Minister criticised the initial comments as “racist”, and the Labour leader called them “harmful and polarising”, the defector argued that his new leader 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 Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.

While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has gained significant ground in the past year, achieving a quarter 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, polling up to 22%.

Declaring that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled in the past year to 12,000 members, the party chair, David Bull stated his belief it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, which would place Reform in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.

Fighting Talk

A Reform councillor, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he referred to the leader as “the future PM of the UK”. He told supporters to “man the barricades as we “challenge the ruling class”, 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 “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.

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”.

Protests Nearby

Meanwhile, a few miles west 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 said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. In an interview, First Minister John Swinney warned that “what the far right do is to assign responsibility … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the root of the poison”.

However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “legitimate points” about strain on public services or community safety.