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The Reform UK figurehead addressed the biggest Reform UK public meeting held in Scotland to date, however avoided engaging with local journalists afterwards. In his place, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor was left to field questions on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to the party leader.

Welcoming a New Recruit

The leader presented the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman during a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. 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 “delighted” to greet the new member. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”.

Avoiding Media Scrutiny

The Reform leader addressed the rally 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. However, the leader avoided 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, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”

Challenged about whether he believed Farage should apologise for the comments he is said to have made about Jewish students, Offord said: “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 the country's leader and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. While addressing supporters, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about pupils in Glasgow who are not native English speakers by asking the rally: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”

While Scotland's First Minister condemned Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer called them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.

Growing Confidence

The rally, attended by an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who each paid £6 to attend, highlights Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.

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

Declaring that Reform UK membership in Scotland had increased fourfold in the past year to 12,000 members, a senior party official said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” at Holyrood.

Campaign Rhetoric

Thomas Kerr, a local representative for the party, prompted a roar of approval as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He told supporters to “prepare for a fight” as we “challenge the ruling class”, cautioning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.

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 underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in Scottish politics in the last year, confessing to supporters that in previous years he had been warned he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.

Local Context

Meanwhile, a few miles west in Falkirk town centre, demonstrators with opposing views assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.

A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated by a serious local crime. Speaking previously, First Minister John Swinney cautioned 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 extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about strain on public services or community safety.