The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the biggest the party's public meeting so far in Scotland, however declined to speak with local journalists following the event. In his place, recently switched member of the House of Lords the former Conservative donor took on the task of responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to the party leader.
A High-Profile Defection
Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman during a packed event of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and was until recently treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for Reform UK in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
The leader stated he was “delighted” to welcome the new member. He described the switch as “a courageous and significant move”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
The Reform leader addressed the rally following a difficult period which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC for questioning him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. However, Farage dodged the expected press huddle post-rally.
Questioned why Farage was not available to answer mounting allegations about his past behaviour, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”
Pressed on if he thought Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks about Jewish students, Offord said: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”
Insisting on Fitness
The peer maintained that the leader is “morally fit” to be prime minister and rejected claims of coded political messaging. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on previous comments about pupils in Glasgow who are not native English speakers by posing the question to the crowd: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
While Scotland's First Minister condemned the initial comments as “racist”, and the Labour leader called them “harmful and polarising”, 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, showcases Reform's increasing self-assurance ahead of the Scottish vote.
Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has made substantial progress 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, polling up to 22%.
Declaring that Reform UK membership in Scotland had increased fourfold in the past year to 12,000 members, a senior party official said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” in the Scottish Parliament.
Campaign Rhetoric
Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “the future PM of the UK”. He told supporters to “prepare for a fight” as we “challenge the ruling class”, cautioning that “the next five months will be tough”.
Although the party has yet to produce a distinct policy platform for Scotland, representatives 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 the political scene in Scotland in the last year, confessing to supporters that he was once told he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.
Local Context
As the event was taking place, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters were gathering for what have become regular weekly confrontations outside a local hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.
A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. In an interview, First Minister John Swinney warned that the tactic of the far-right is to apportion the blame … to new arrivals and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.
However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or community safety.
