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Nigel Farage spoke to the largest Reform UK rally so far in Scotland, but declined to speak with the press corps afterwards. Instead, recently switched peer the former Conservative donor took on the task of responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and antisemitism surrounding Farage.

Welcoming a New Recruit

The leader presented the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman at a sold-out rally of about 700 supporters at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and was until recently treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to stand for the party in next May’s Holyrood elections.

Farage said he was “delighted” to greet the new member. He called the peer’s defection as “a courageous and significant move”.

Dodging the Press

The Reform leader spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC for questioning him about an investigation into alleged racist and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. But, the leader avoided 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, the new recruit responded: “That is a question for him to answer.”

Pressed on whether he believed an apology was necessary for the comments he is said to have made towards Jewish pupils, he stated: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”

Insisting on Fitness

The peer maintained that the leader is “ethically suitable” to be prime minister and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. While addressing supporters, the leader had reiterated on previous comments 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 Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and the Labour leader labeled them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.

Growing Confidence

The event, attended by an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who each paid £6 to attend, highlights the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.

Although the SNP continues to lead in the polls, 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 in recent months, with support reaching over a fifth.

Announcing that party membership north of the border had quadrupled in the past year to a running total of 12,000, 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

A Reform councillor, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, prompted a roar of approval as he described Farage as “the future PM of the UK”. He told supporters to “prepare for a fight” as we take on the political establishment”, warning that “the next five months will be tough”.

Despite not yet publishing a distinct policy platform for Scotland, representatives vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.

Farage himself underlined his delight 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 the heart of Falkirk, demonstrators with opposing views assembled for a now-regular weekly standoff outside a local hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.

A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. In an interview, First Minister John Swinney 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”.

However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.