The Reform UK figurehead addressed the largest the party's public meeting held in Scotland to date, but avoided engaging with local journalists following the event. Instead, newly defected member of the House of Lords the former Conservative donor was left to responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding the party leader.
A High-Profile Defection
The leader presented the former Conservative peer and millionaire donor during a sold-out rally of about 700 attendees at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland under the last government and most recently served as the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for Reform UK in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
Farage said he was “delighted” to welcome the new member. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
The Reform leader spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster after they quizzed him about an investigation into alleged racist and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. But, the leader avoided a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event.
When asked why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Pressed on whether he believed an apology was necessary for his alleged remarks towards Jewish pupils, he stated: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Defending the Leader
The peer maintained that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be prime minister and denied he was employing coded political messaging. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about pupils in Glasgow who are not native English speakers by asking the rally: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”
Although the first minister, John Swinney criticised Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
Growing Confidence
The event, filled with an energetic and enthused crowd of predominantly older, white male backers who each paid £6 to attend, showcases Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.
Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has gained significant ground recently, achieving a quarter 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 in recent months, with support reaching over a fifth.
Declaring that party membership north of the border had quadrupled in the past year to 12,000 members, the party chair, David Bull said he believed it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” in the Scottish Parliament.
Campaign Rhetoric
A Reform councillor, a local representative for the party, 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 take on the political establishment”, cautioning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.
Despite not yet publishing a distinct policy platform for Scotland, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.
Farage himself underlined his delight at Reform's rise as a significant player in Scottish politics in the last year, confessing to supporters that he was once told he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Protests Nearby
Meanwhile, a few miles west 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.
The organisers of the demonstrations stated they were motivated by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. 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 source of a harmful narrative”.
However, he differentiated extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
