🔗 Share this article

The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the largest the party's public meeting so far in Scotland, but avoided engaging with the press corps following the event. Instead, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor took on the task of field questions on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to Farage.

A High-Profile Defection

Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman at a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland in the previous administration and was until recently treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to stand for the party in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.

The leader stated he was “delighted” to welcome the new member. He described the switch as “a brave and historic act”.

Dodging the Press

The Reform leader spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and remarks from his teenage years. However, the leader avoided the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.

When asked why Farage was not available to answer mounting allegations about his past behaviour, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”

Pressed on whether he believed an apology was necessary for the comments he is said to have made about Jewish students, he stated: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”

Insisting on Fitness

The peer maintained that the leader is “morally fit” to be the country's leader and rejected claims of coded political messaging. During his speech, the leader had reiterated on previous comments about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who speak English as a second language by posing the question to the crowd: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”

While the first minister, John Swinney criticised Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “toxic and divisive”, the defector argued that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that people are talking about on the doorstep”.

Growing Confidence

The rally, filled with an lively and passionate audience of predominantly older, white male backers who bought tickets for the event, highlights the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.

Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has made substantial progress recently, securing 26% of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, the party has often relegated it to third in recent months, polling up to 22%.

Declaring that party membership north of the border had quadrupled over the last twelve months to 12,000 members, a senior party official said he believed it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” at Holyrood.

Fighting Talk

A Reform councillor, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, prompted a roar of approval 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”, warning that “the next five months will be tough”.

Although the party has yet to produce any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.

Farage himself expressed his pleasure at the party’s emergence as a force in Scottish politics in the last year, confessing to supporters that in previous years he had been warned he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.

Protests Nearby

Meanwhile, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations outside a local hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.

The organisers of the demonstrations 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”.

However, he differentiated extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or community safety.