🔗 Share this article

Nigel Farage addressed the largest the party's public meeting so far in Scotland, but declined to speak with the press corps afterwards. Instead, newly defected peer the former Conservative donor took on the task of field questions on allegations of racism and antisemitism surrounding the party leader.

A High-Profile Defection

Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and millionaire donor during a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland under the last government and most recently served as the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to stand for the party in next May’s Holyrood elections.

The leader stated he was “extremely pleased” 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 following a difficult period which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and remarks from his teenage years. But, the leader avoided a planned media briefing post-rally.

When asked why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”

Challenged about whether he believed Farage should apologise for the comments he is said to have made towards Jewish pupils, Offord said: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”

Insisting on Fitness

The peer maintained that the leader is “morally fit” 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 are not native English speakers by asking the rally: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”

While Scotland's First Minister condemned Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and the Labour leader labeled them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that Farage was “drawing attention to a real concern” that people are talking about on the doorstep”.

A Party on the Rise

The rally, attended by an lively and passionate audience of predominantly older, white male backers who bought tickets for the event, highlights the party’s growing confidence before next May’s elections.

While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has gained significant ground in the past year, securing 26% of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. Following Scottish Labour's decline, the party has often relegated it to third in recent months, with support reaching over a fifth.

Announcing that party membership north of the border had quadrupled over the last twelve months to 12,000 members, a senior party official 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, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “the future PM of the UK”. He instructed the crowd to “prepare for a fight” as we take on the political establishment”, cautioning that “the next five months will be tough”.

Despite not yet publishing a distinct policy platform for Scotland, representatives pledged Reform would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.

Farage himself underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in the political scene in Scotland over the past 12 months, admitting to the audience that he was once told he “couldn't fill a small venue”.

Local Context

As the event was taking place, a few miles west in Falkirk town centre, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations outside a local hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.

A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. In an interview, Scotland's leader 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 between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or community safety.