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. In his place, recently switched peer 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.
Welcoming a New Recruit
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor during a sold-out rally of about 700 supporters at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and most recently served as the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, stated his plan 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 “delighted” to welcome Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”.
Dodging the Press
Farage addressed the rally after a turbulent week which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. But, the leader avoided a planned media briefing post-rally.
Questioned why his new party’s leader was not available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Challenged about whether he believed an apology was necessary for his alleged remarks about Jewish students, Offord said: “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 prime minister and denied he was employing coded political messaging. During his speech, the leader had reiterated on his remarks 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?”
Although Scotland's First Minister criticised the initial comments as “racist”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that “voters are discussing”.
Growing Confidence
The rally, attended by an energetic and enthused crowd 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, Reform UK 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, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place lately, polling up to 22%.
Declaring that party membership north of the border had increased fourfold in the past year to 12,000 members, a senior party official stated his belief it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, which would place Reform in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.
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 instructed the crowd to “man the barricades 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 pledged Reform 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 over the past 12 months, confessing to supporters that in previous years he had been warned he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Local Context
As the event was taking place, not far away 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.
The organisers of the demonstrations said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. In an interview, Scotland's leader warned that the tactic of the far-right is to apportion the blame … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the root of the poison”.
However, he differentiated extremist opinions and people with “valid concerns” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.
