The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the biggest the party's rally held in Scotland to date, however declined to speak with the press corps following the event. In his place, recently switched member of the House of Lords the former Conservative donor was left to field questions on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to Farage.
A High-Profile Defection
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor at a sold-out rally of about 700 supporters in a hotel venue in central Scotland. The businessman, who worked as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and was until recently treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to become a candidate for the party in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
Farage said he was “extremely pleased” to welcome Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
The Reform leader spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him about an investigation into alleged racist and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. However, Farage dodged a planned media briefing post-rally.
When asked why his new party’s leader was not available to answer mounting allegations about his past behaviour, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Pressed on whether he believed Farage should apologise for the comments he is said to have made towards Jewish pupils, he stated: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Insisting on Fitness
The peer maintained that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. During his speech, the leader had reiterated on previous comments about pupils in Glasgow who are not native English speakers by posing the question to the crowd: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”
Although Scotland's First Minister criticised Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and the Labour leader called them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that his new leader 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 largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who bought tickets for the event, showcases the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.
Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has gained significant ground in the past year, achieving a quarter of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. Following Scottish Labour's decline, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place in recent months, polling up to 22%.
Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled in the past year 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 very strong position” at Holyrood.
Fighting Talk
Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, prompted a roar of approval as he referred to the leader as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He instructed the crowd to “prepare for a fight” as we “challenge the ruling class”, warning that “the next five months will be tough”.
Although the party has yet to produce any Scotland-specific policies, representatives pledged Reform would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.
The leader personally underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in the political scene in Scotland over the past 12 months, admitting to the audience that in previous years he had been warned he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.
Local Context
As the event was taking place, not far away in Falkirk town centre, demonstrators with opposing views assembled for a now-regular weekly standoff outside a local hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
The organisers of the demonstrations said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. In an interview, Scotland's leader cautioned that “what the far right do is to assign responsibility … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the root of the poison”.
He also made a clear distinction extremist opinions and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or community safety.
