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Nigel Farage addressed the biggest Reform UK public meeting so far in Scotland, however avoided engaging with local journalists afterwards. In his place, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor was left to field questions on allegations of racism and antisemitism linked to the party leader.

Welcoming a New Recruit

The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman at a packed event of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and most recently served as 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.

Farage said he was “extremely pleased” to welcome Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection as “a courageous and significant move”.

Dodging the Press

The Reform leader spoke to the crowd following a difficult period which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him regarding a report into alleged racist and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. But, Farage dodged the expected press huddle post-rally.

Questioned why Farage was not available to address growing claims concerning his history, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”

Challenged about whether he believed Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks about Jewish students, Offord said: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”

Insisting on Fitness

Offord insisted that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be prime minister and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. During his speech, the leader had reiterated on previous comments about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren 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 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 people are talking about on the doorstep”.

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, showcases the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.

While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has made substantial progress recently, securing 26% of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. Following Scottish Labour's decline, the party has often relegated it to third in recent months, polling up to 22%.

Declaring that party membership north of the border had increased fourfold in the past year to 12,000 members, the party chair, David Bull said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, putting the party in “a very strong position” at Holyrood.

Fighting Talk

Thomas Kerr, a local representative for the party, 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 coming campaign will be difficult”.

Although the party has yet to produce any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.

The leader personally underlined his delight at Reform's rise as a significant player in the political scene in Scotland in the last year, confessing to supporters that in previous years he had been warned he “couldn't fill a small venue”.

Protests Nearby

As the event was taking place, a few miles west in the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.

A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated by a serious local crime. In an interview, Scotland's leader cautioned that “what the far right do is to apportion the blame … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the root of the poison”.

He also made a clear distinction between those who hold far-right views and people with “legitimate points” about strain on public services or community safety.