The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the biggest Reform UK rally held in Scotland to date, however avoided engaging with local journalists following the event. Instead, newly defected peer Malcolm Offord was left to responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment linked to the party leader.
A High-Profile Defection
The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman at a sold-out rally of about 700 supporters in a hotel venue 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 the upcoming Scottish parliament vote.
The leader stated he was “extremely pleased” to greet Offord to the party. He described the switch as “a brave and historic act”.
Dodging the Press
The Reform leader spoke to the crowd after a turbulent week which saw him launch a fierce criticism of the broadcaster for questioning him about an investigation into alleged racist 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 concerning his history, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”
Pressed on if he thought Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks towards Jewish pupils, he stated: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.”
Defending the Leader
Offord insisted that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. While addressing supporters, the leader had reiterated on previous comments about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who are not native English speakers by posing the question to the crowd: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”
Although the first minister, John Swinney criticised the initial comments as “discriminatory”, and the Labour leader labeled them “harmful and polarising”, the defector argued that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.
Growing Confidence
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 SNP continues to lead in the polls, Reform UK has gained significant ground recently, achieving a quarter of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. Following Scottish Labour's decline, 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 said he believed it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, putting the party in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.
Fighting Talk
A Reform councillor, 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 told supporters to “prepare for a fight” as we “challenge the ruling class”, cautioning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.
Although the party has yet to produce any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.
Farage himself expressed his pleasure at the party’s emergence as a force in Scottish politics in the last year, confessing to supporters that he was once told he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”.
Protests Nearby
Meanwhile, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, 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 stated they were motivated by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. Speaking previously, First Minister John Swinney cautioned 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”.
However, he differentiated extremist opinions and people with “valid concerns” about pressure on local services or neighbourhood security.
