The Reform UK figurehead addressed the biggest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, however avoided engaging with the press corps afterwards. In his place, recently switched peer the former Conservative donor took on the task of responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and antisemitism surrounding Farage.
A High-Profile Defection
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor during a packed event of roughly seven hundred attendees in a hotel venue near Falkirk. The businessman, who worked as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and was until recently treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to become a candidate for the party 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
The Reform leader addressed the rally after a turbulent week 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 the expected press huddle after Saturday’s event.
Questioned 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, he stated: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Defending the Leader
The peer maintained that Farage was “morally fit” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing coded political messaging. During his speech, the leader had reiterated on previous comments 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 “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”.
Growing Confidence
The event, attended by an energetic and enthused crowd of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who each paid £6 to attend, highlights Reform's increasing self-assurance ahead of the Scottish vote.
Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has gained significant ground recently, securing 26% of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. Following Scottish Labour's decline, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place in recent months, polling up to 22%.
Declaring that Reform UK membership in Scotland had increased fourfold over the last twelve months 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
Thomas Kerr, a local representative for the party, prompted a roar of approval as he referred to the leader as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He told supporters to “man the barricades as we take on the political establishment”, cautioning that “the next five months will be tough”.
Despite not yet publishing any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.
The leader personally expressed his pleasure at Reform's rise as a significant player in Scottish politics 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
Meanwhile, a few miles west in Falkirk town centre, demonstrators with opposing views assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations near a hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.
A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a serious local crime. Speaking previously, Scotland's leader cautioned that “what the far right do is to apportion the blame … to asylum seekers or migrants and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.
However, he differentiated extremist opinions and people with “valid concerns” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.
