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The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the largest Reform UK rally so far in Scotland, but declined to speak with the press corps afterwards. Instead, newly defected peer Malcolm Offord took on the task of responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding the party leader.

Welcoming a New Recruit

The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman during a packed event of about 700 attendees in a hotel venue in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and most recently served as the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to become a candidate for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.

The leader stated he was “delighted” to greet the new member. He described the switch as “a courageous and significant move”.

Avoiding Media Scrutiny

The Reform leader spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and remarks as a youth. But, Farage dodged the expected press huddle 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 an apology was necessary 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.”

Defending the Leader

Offord insisted that the leader is “morally fit” 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 authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”

While Scotland's First Minister condemned the initial comments as “racist”, and Keir Starmer called them “toxic and divisive”, the defector argued that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.

Growing Confidence

The event, filled with 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.

While the SNP continues to lead in the polls, the party has made substantial progress in the past year, securing 26% of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. Following Scottish Labour's decline, the party has often relegated it to third in recent months, polling up to 22%.

Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had increased fourfold over the last twelve months 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 powerful situation” at Holyrood.

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 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 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 the political scene in Scotland in the last year, confessing to supporters that he was once told he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.

Protests Nearby

Meanwhile, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, demonstrators with opposing views assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.

The organisers of the demonstrations said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. Speaking previously, Scotland's leader warned that the tactic of the far-right is to apportion the blame … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the root of the poison”.

However, he differentiated extremist opinions and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.