🔗 Share this article Reform UK Leader Addresses Party's Largest Gathering in Scotland Amid Controversy and High-Profile Switch Nigel Farage spoke to the largest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, however declined to speak with the press corps following the event. In his place, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor was left to field questions on claims of discriminatory behaviour and antisemitism linked to the party leader. A High-Profile Defection Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman during a packed event of about 700 supporters in a hotel venue in central Scotland. The businessman, who worked as a junior minister for Scotland under the last government and most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to stand for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections. Farage said he was “delighted” to welcome Offord to the party. He described the switch as “a courageous and significant move”. Avoiding Media Scrutiny Farage addressed the rally after a turbulent week which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster after they quizzed him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. But, Farage dodged a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event. When asked why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to address growing claims concerning his history, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.” Challenged about whether he believed Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks towards Jewish pupils, he stated: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.” Insisting on Fitness The peer maintained that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be prime minister and denied he was employing coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, the leader had reiterated 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 criticised Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “harmful and polarising”, the defector argued that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”. Growing Confidence The rally, 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 ahead of the Scottish vote. Although the SNP continues to lead in the polls, the party has gained significant ground 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, with support reaching over a fifth. Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland 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, putting the party in “a very strong position” in the Scottish Parliament. 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 told supporters to “man the barricades as we “challenge the ruling class”, warning that “the next five months will be tough”. Although the party has yet to produce a distinct policy platform for Scotland, speakers from the north-east pledged Reform would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”. The leader personally 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 in previous years he had been warned he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”. Protests Nearby As the event was taking place, a few miles west in Falkirk town centre, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters were gathering for a now-regular weekly standoff near a hotel where asylum seekers are now housed. The organisers of the demonstrations said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. In an interview, First Minister John Swinney cautioned that the tactic of the far-right is to assign responsibility … to new arrivals and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”. However, he differentiated extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.