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Nigel Farage addressed the biggest Reform UK rally so far in Scotland, but declined to speak with the press corps following the event. Instead, recently switched peer the former Conservative donor was left to field questions on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding Farage.

Welcoming a New Recruit

The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor at a packed event of about 700 supporters in a hotel venue near Falkirk. The businessman, who worked as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and was until recently treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to become a candidate for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.

Farage said he was “delighted” to welcome the new member. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”.

Dodging the Press

The Reform leader spoke to the crowd following a difficult period which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. However, Farage dodged the expected press huddle post-rally.

When asked why Farage was not available to answer mounting allegations about his past behaviour, Offord said: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”

Pressed on if he thought an apology was necessary for his alleged remarks about Jewish students, 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 prime minister and denied he was employing coded political messaging. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who are not native English speakers by asking the rally: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”

While the first minister, John Swinney criticised the initial comments as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained that his new leader was “drawing attention to a real concern” that “voters are discussing”.

A Party on the Rise

The event, 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 before next May’s elections.

While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has made substantial progress 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 in recent months, with support reaching over a fifth.

Announcing that party membership north of the border 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 very strong position” at Holyrood.

Campaign Rhetoric

Thomas Kerr, a local representative for the party, elicited loud cheers as he described Farage as “the future PM of the UK”. He instructed the crowd to “man the barricades as we take on the political establishment”, warning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.

Despite not yet publishing any Scotland-specific policies, speakers from the north-east pledged Reform would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”.

Farage himself underlined his delight at Reform's rise as a significant player 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”.

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 where asylum seekers are now housed.

A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. Speaking previously, First Minister John Swinney cautioned that “what the far right do is to apportion the blame … to new arrivals and I think that is the root of the poison”.

However, he differentiated between those who hold far-right views and people with “valid concerns” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.