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The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the biggest Reform UK public meeting held in Scotland to date, but avoided engaging with the press corps afterwards. In his place, recently switched member of the House of Lords the former Conservative donor took on the task of field questions on allegations of racism and antisemitism linked to the party leader.

Welcoming a New Recruit

Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman during a sold-out rally of about 700 attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. The businessman, who worked as a junior minister for Scotland in the previous administration and was until recently treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to become a candidate for the party in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.

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

Dodging the Press

The Reform leader spoke to the crowd following a difficult period which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. However, Farage dodged the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.

When asked why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”

Pressed on if he thought an apology was necessary for his alleged remarks towards Jewish pupils, Offord said: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”

Defending the Leader

The peer maintained that the leader is “morally fit” to be prime minister and rejected claims of coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who are not native English speakers by posing the question to the crowd: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”

Although Scotland's First Minister condemned Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer called them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained 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 lively and passionate audience of predominantly older, white male backers who each paid £6 to attend, showcases Reform's increasing self-assurance ahead of the Scottish vote.

Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has made substantial progress recently, achieving a quarter of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. Following Scottish Labour's decline, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place lately, with support reaching over a fifth.

Announcing that party membership north of the border had increased fourfold over the last twelve months 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 powerful situation” in the Scottish Parliament.

Campaign Rhetoric

Thomas Kerr, a local representative for the party, elicited loud cheers as he referred to the leader as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He told supporters to “man the barricades as we “challenge the ruling class”, cautioning that “the next five months will be tough”.

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

Farage himself underlined his delight 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 near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.

The organisers of the demonstrations said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. Speaking previously, Scotland's leader warned that “what the far right do is to apportion the blame … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.

He also made a clear distinction between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.