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The Reform UK figurehead addressed the biggest Reform UK rally so far in Scotland, but declined to speak with local journalists following the event. Instead, newly defected member of the House of Lords the former Conservative donor took on the task of field questions on claims of discriminatory behaviour and antisemitism linked to the party leader.

Welcoming a New Recruit

The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman during a packed event of roughly seven hundred supporters in a hotel venue near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to relinquish his seat in the Lords 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

Farage spoke to the crowd following a difficult period which included him delivering a fierce criticism of the broadcaster after they quizzed him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and remarks as a youth. However, the leader avoided a planned media briefing post-rally.

When asked why his new party’s leader was not available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”

Challenged about if he thought Farage should apologise for the comments he is said to have made about Jewish students, Offord said: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”

Defending the Leader

Offord insisted that Farage was “morally fit” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, the leader had reiterated on previous comments about pupils in Glasgow who speak English as a second language by posing the question to the crowd: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”

While Scotland's First Minister criticised the initial comments as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer called them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that his new leader was “drawing attention to a real concern” that people are talking about on the doorstep”.

Growing Confidence

The rally, attended by an lively and passionate audience of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters 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 gained significant ground recently, securing 26% of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. 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.

Announcing that party membership north of the border had quadrupled over the last twelve months 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” at Holyrood.

Fighting Talk

A Reform councillor, a local representative for the party, elicited loud cheers as he referred to the leader as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He instructed the crowd to “man the barricades 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 vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.

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”.

Local Context

Meanwhile, 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 used to accommodate asylum seekers.

A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated by a serious local crime. Speaking previously, 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 extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.