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The Reform UK figurehead addressed the largest the party's rally held in Scotland to date, however declined to speak with local journalists 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.

Welcoming a New Recruit

The leader presented the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman at a packed event of about 700 attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to stand for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.

The leader stated he was “extremely pleased” to greet the new member. He described the switch as “a brave and historic act”.

Avoiding Media Scrutiny

The Reform leader addressed the rally following a difficult period which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and remarks from his teenage years. However, the leader avoided a planned media briefing post-rally.

Questioned why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations about his past behaviour, the new recruit responded: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”

Pressed on whether he believed an apology was necessary 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 Farage was “morally fit” to be prime minister and denied he was employing coded political messaging. 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?”

Although Scotland's First Minister condemned Farage’s original remarks as “racist”, and Keir Starmer called them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.

A Party on the Rise

The event, filled with an lively and passionate audience of predominantly older, white male backers who bought tickets for the event, highlights the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.

While the SNP continues to lead in the polls, the party has made substantial progress recently, securing 26% 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 in recent months, polling up to 22%.

Announcing that party membership north of the border had quadrupled in the past year to a running total of 12,000, the party chair, David Bull stated his belief it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.

Campaign Rhetoric

Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, prompted a roar of approval as he referred to the leader 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”.

Although the party has yet to produce any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.

Farage himself underlined his delight at Reform's rise as a significant player in Scottish politics in the last year, admitting to the audience that he was once told he “couldn't fill a small venue”.

Protests Nearby

Meanwhile, not far away in Falkirk town centre, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters were gathering for a now-regular weekly standoff outside a local hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.

The organisers of the demonstrations said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. In an interview, First Minister John Swinney warned that “what the far right do is to assign responsibility … to new arrivals 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 neighbourhood security.