The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the biggest the party's public meeting so far in Scotland, however declined to speak with the press corps afterwards. In his place, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor was left to responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to the party leader.
A High-Profile Defection
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman during a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred supporters at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. The businessman, who worked as a junior minister for Scotland in the previous administration and was until recently the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, announced his intention to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to stand for the party in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
The leader stated he was “delighted” to welcome the new member. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”.
Dodging the Press
The Reform leader addressed the rally after a turbulent week which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him about an investigation into alleged racist and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. But, Farage dodged a planned media briefing post-rally.
Questioned why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to address growing claims 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 “morally fit” to be the country's leader and rejected claims of dog-whistle politics. While addressing supporters, Farage had doubled down on previous comments about pupils in Glasgow who are not native English speakers by asking the rally: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”
While the first minister, John Swinney condemned the initial comments as “racist”, and the Labour leader labeled them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that “voters are discussing”.
A Party on the Rise
The event, attended by an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who bought tickets for the event, highlights Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.
Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has gained significant ground in the past year, 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, polling up to 22%.
Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled in the past year to a running total of 12,000, the party chair, David Bull stated his belief it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, which would place Reform in “a powerful situation” in the Scottish Parliament.
Campaign Rhetoric
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 told supporters to “prepare for a fight” as we take on the political establishment”, cautioning that “the next five months will be tough”.
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 Reform's rise as a significant player 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”.
Local Context
As the event was taking place, not far away in Falkirk town centre, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering for a now-regular weekly standoff near a hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.
A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. In an interview, Scotland's leader cautioned that the tactic of the far-right is to apportion the blame … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.
He also made a clear distinction between those who hold far-right views and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or community safety.
