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Nigel Farage addressed the biggest the party's public meeting so far in Scotland, but avoided engaging with the press corps following the event. In his place, recently switched member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord was left to responding to queries on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to the party leader.

A High-Profile Defection

Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor during a sold-out rally of about 700 attendees in a hotel venue in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland under the last government and was until recently 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 the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.

The leader stated he was “extremely pleased” to welcome Offord to the party. He described the switch as “a brave and historic act”.

Dodging the Press

The Reform leader addressed the rally after a turbulent week which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster after they quizzed him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and remarks from his teenage years. However, the leader avoided a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event.

When asked why his new party’s leader was not 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 the comments he is said to have made about Jewish students, he stated: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”

Insisting on Fitness

Offord insisted that the leader is “morally fit” to be the country's leader and rejected claims of dog-whistle politics. 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 Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and Keir Starmer 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 rally, 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 Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has made substantial progress in the past year, achieving a quarter of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place lately, 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 stated his belief it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.

Campaign Rhetoric

A Reform councillor, a local representative for the party, elicited loud cheers as he referred to the leader as “the future PM of the UK”. He instructed the crowd to “man the barricades as we take on the political establishment”, warning 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”.

The leader personally underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in Scottish politics over the past 12 months, admitting to the audience that he was once told he “couldn't fill a small venue”.

Protests Nearby

Meanwhile, 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.

A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. In an interview, Scotland's leader warned that “what the far right do is to assign responsibility … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the root of the poison”.

He also made a clear distinction between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or community safety.