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Nigel Farage addressed the largest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, but avoided engaging with the press corps afterwards. Instead, newly defected member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord took on the task of responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and antisemitism surrounding the party leader.

A High-Profile Defection

The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor at a packed event of about 700 supporters at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland under the last government and most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for the party in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.

The leader stated 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 addressed the rally after a turbulent week which included him delivering a fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him about an investigation into alleged racist and remarks from his teenage years. However, Farage dodged the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.

Questioned why his new party’s leader was not available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”

Pressed on whether he believed Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks 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 the leader is “ethically suitable” to be prime minister and rejected claims of coded political messaging. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on his remarks 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 Scotland's First Minister criticised Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.

Growing Confidence

The event, filled with an lively and passionate audience of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who each paid £6 to attend, highlights Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.

While the SNP continues to lead in the polls, Reform UK has gained significant ground in the past year, achieving a quarter of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, the party has often relegated it to third lately, with support reaching over a fifth.

Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled 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, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” at Holyrood.

Fighting Talk

A Reform councillor, a local representative for the party, prompted a roar of approval as he described Farage as “the future PM of the UK”. He instructed the crowd to “man the barricades as we “challenge the ruling class”, cautioning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.

Despite not yet publishing any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.

The leader personally 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

As the event was taking place, a few miles west in Falkirk town centre, 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 stated they were motivated by a serious local crime. Speaking previously, 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”.

He also made a clear distinction extremist opinions and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or community safety.