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Nigel Farage addressed the largest the party's public meeting held in Scotland to date, but declined to speak with local journalists following the event. In his place, newly defected peer Malcolm Offord was left to field questions on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding Farage.

Welcoming a New Recruit

Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman at a packed event 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 the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, announced his intention to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to become a candidate for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.

Farage said he was “extremely pleased” to welcome Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”.

Dodging the Press

Farage spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week which included him delivering a fierce criticism of the broadcaster after they quizzed him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. But, Farage dodged a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event.

When asked why his new party’s leader was not available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”

Challenged about if he thought an apology was necessary for the comments he is said to have made towards Jewish pupils, Offord said: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”

Defending the Leader

The peer maintained that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be prime minister and rejected claims of dog-whistle politics. During his speech, 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?”

While Scotland's First Minister condemned the initial comments as “racist”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “toxic and divisive”, the defector argued that his new leader was “drawing attention to a real concern” that people are talking about on the doorstep”.

A Party on the Rise

The event, attended by an lively and passionate audience of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who bought tickets for the event, highlights Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.

Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has gained significant ground recently, securing 26% 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%.

Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had increased fourfold over the last twelve months to 12,000 members, the party chair, David Bull stated his belief it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” in the Scottish Parliament.

Fighting Talk

Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he referred to the leader as “the future PM of the UK”. He told supporters to “man the barricades as we take on the political establishment”, warning that “the next five months will be tough”.

Despite not yet publishing any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.

Farage himself expressed his pleasure at Reform's rise as a significant player in Scottish politics in the last year, admitting to the audience that in previous years he had been warned he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.

Protests Nearby

As the event was taking place, not far away in Falkirk town centre, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for a now-regular weekly standoff near a hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.

A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. Speaking previously, Scotland's leader warned that “what the far right do is to assign responsibility … to new arrivals and I think that is the root of the poison”.

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