Nigel Farage spoke to the biggest Reform UK public meeting so far in Scotland, however declined to speak with the press corps following the event. Instead, newly defected peer Malcolm Offord was left to field questions on allegations of racism and antisemitism surrounding 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 attendees at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. The businessman, who worked as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to become a candidate for Reform UK in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
Farage said he was “delighted” to greet the new member. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”.
Dodging the Press
The Reform leader spoke to the crowd following a difficult period which included him delivering a fierce criticism of the broadcaster after they quizzed him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and remarks from his teenage years. But, the leader avoided a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event.
When asked why Farage did not make himself available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Pressed on if he thought Farage should apologise for the comments he is said to have made about Jewish students, he stated: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”
Defending the Leader
Offord insisted that the leader is “ethically suitable” to be the country's leader and rejected claims of coded political messaging. During his speech, the leader had reiterated on previous comments about pupils in Glasgow who speak English as a second language by asking the rally: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
While the first minister, John Swinney criticised the initial comments as “racist”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
Growing Confidence
The event, attended by an lively and passionate audience of predominantly older, white male backers who bought tickets for the event, highlights Reform's increasing self-assurance ahead of the Scottish vote.
Although the SNP continues to lead in the polls, the party has gained significant ground in the past year, 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, polling up to 22%.
Announcing that party membership north of the border had quadrupled over the last twelve months to 12,000 members, the party chair, David Bull said he believed it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” in the Scottish Parliament.
Fighting Talk
Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He told supporters to “prepare for a fight” as we take on the political establishment”, cautioning that “the next five months will be tough”.
Although the party has yet to produce 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 the party’s emergence as a force in Scottish politics over the past 12 months, confessing to supporters that he was once told he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Protests Nearby
As the event was taking place, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering for a now-regular weekly standoff near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated 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 root of the poison”.
He also made a clear distinction between those who hold far-right views and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
