The Reform UK figurehead addressed the biggest the party's rally held in Scotland to date, however avoided engaging with local journalists afterwards. In his place, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor took on the task of responding to queries on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding the party leader.
A High-Profile Defection
Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor during a packed event of about 700 attendees in a hotel venue near Falkirk. The businessman, who worked as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and was until recently treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for the party in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
The leader stated he was “extremely pleased” to greet Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection as “a courageous and significant move”.
Avoiding Media Scrutiny
The Reform leader spoke to the crowd following a difficult period which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. But, Farage dodged a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event.
Questioned 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 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 “morally fit” to be prime minister and denied he was employing coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about pupils in Glasgow who are not native English speakers by posing the question to the crowd: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”
Although the first minister, John Swinney criticised the initial comments as “racist”, and the Labour leader called them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.
Growing Confidence
The event, filled with an lively and passionate audience of predominantly older, white male backers who each paid £6 to attend, highlights the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.
While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has made substantial progress recently, securing 26% of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, the party has often relegated it to third in recent months, polling up to 22%.
Declaring that party membership north of the border had quadrupled in the past year to a running total of 12,000, a senior party official said he believed it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, which would place Reform in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.
Campaign Rhetoric
A Reform councillor, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, prompted a roar of approval as he referred to the leader as “the future PM of the UK”. He instructed the crowd to “man the barricades as we “challenge the ruling class”, cautioning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.
Despite not yet publishing a distinct policy platform for Scotland, speakers from the north-east pledged Reform 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 “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Protests Nearby
Meanwhile, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering for a now-regular weekly standoff outside a local hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. Speaking previously, Scotland's leader cautioned 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 extremist opinions and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or community safety.
