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The Reform UK figurehead addressed the biggest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, however avoided engaging with the press corps following the event. In his place, newly defected peer Malcolm Offord took on the task of field questions on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding Farage.

Welcoming a New Recruit

Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman during a packed event of roughly seven hundred attendees in a hotel venue near Falkirk. 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 “extremely pleased” to welcome Offord to the party. He described the switch as “a courageous and significant move”.

Dodging the Press

Farage spoke to the crowd following a difficult period which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC for questioning him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. But, Farage dodged the expected press huddle post-rally.

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

Challenged about whether he believed an apology was necessary for his alleged remarks towards Jewish pupils, Offord said: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”

Insisting on Fitness

Offord insisted that the leader is “morally fit” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing coded political messaging. While addressing supporters, Farage had doubled down on previous comments about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who speak English as a second language by posing the question to the crowd: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”

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

A Party on the Rise

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.

While the SNP continues to lead in the polls, the party 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, the party has often relegated it to third lately, polling up to 22%.

Announcing that Reform UK membership in Scotland had increased fourfold over the last twelve months to 12,000 members, the party chair, David Bull stated his belief it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, putting the party in “a very strong position” in the Scottish Parliament.

Fighting Talk

A Reform councillor, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, elicited loud cheers as he referred to the leader as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He told supporters to “man the barricades as we “challenge the ruling class”, warning that “the next five months will be tough”.

Despite not yet publishing a distinct policy platform for Scotland, speakers from the north-east pledged Reform would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.

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 in previous years he had been warned he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.

Local Context

As the event was taking place, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering for a now-regular weekly standoff near a hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.

A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. Speaking previously, 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 pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.