The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the biggest the party's rally so far in Scotland, however declined to speak with local journalists following the event. Instead, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor was left to responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and antisemitism linked to Farage.
Welcoming a New Recruit
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor at a packed event of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland in the previous administration and most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan 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 “delighted” to welcome the new member. He described the switch 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 tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. But, the leader avoided a planned media briefing post-rally.
Questioned why Farage was not available to answer mounting allegations concerning his history, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”
Challenged about whether he believed Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks about Jewish students, Offord said: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Defending the Leader
Offord insisted that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be prime minister and rejected claims of coded political messaging. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about pupils in Glasgow who speak English as a second language by asking the rally: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”
Although Scotland's First Minister condemned the initial comments as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “toxic and divisive”, the defector argued that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
A Party on the Rise
The rally, attended by an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who bought tickets for the event, showcases Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.
While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has made substantial progress recently, securing 26% of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place lately, polling up to 22%.
Announcing that party membership north of the border had increased fourfold in the past year to 12,000 members, 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” at Holyrood.
Fighting Talk
A Reform councillor, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, prompted a roar of approval as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He instructed the crowd to “man the barricades as we “challenge the ruling class”, warning that “the next five months will be tough”.
Despite not yet publishing any Scotland-specific policies, representatives vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.
The leader personally underlined his delight at Reform's rise as a significant player in the political scene in Scotland over the past 12 months, admitting to the audience that in previous years he had been warned he “couldn't fill a small venue”.
Local Context
As the event was taking place, not far away in Falkirk town centre, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed.
A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. 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 source of a harmful narrative”.
However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or community safety.
