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The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the biggest Reform UK rally so far in Scotland, however avoided engaging with the press corps following the event. In his place, recently switched member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord was left to field questions on allegations of racism and antisemitism surrounding Farage.

Welcoming a New Recruit

The leader presented the ex-Tory lord and wealthy businessman during a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred supporters at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. The businessman, who worked as a junior minister for Scotland under the last government and most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to stand for the party 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

Farage 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 as a youth. However, the leader avoided a planned media briefing 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: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”

Challenged about if he thought Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks about Jewish students, Offord said: “I think that’s something he’ll need to consider with his own advisers.”

Defending the Leader

Offord insisted that Farage was “ethically suitable” to be the country's leader and rejected claims of coded political messaging. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on previous comments about pupils in Glasgow 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 condemned Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer called them “toxic and divisive”, Offord maintained 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, showcases the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote.

Although the SNP continues to lead in the polls, Reform UK has gained significant ground in the past year, achieving a quarter of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. Following Scottish Labour's decline, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place lately, with support reaching over a fifth.

Declaring that Reform UK membership in Scotland had increased fourfold 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 very strong position” at Holyrood.

Campaign Rhetoric

A Reform councillor, a local representative for the party, prompted a roar of approval as he described Farage as “Britain’s next prime minister”. 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”.

The leader personally expressed his pleasure 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”.

Local Context

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

A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. In an interview, Scotland's leader cautioned that the tactic of the far-right is to assign responsibility … to asylum seekers or migrants 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 “valid concerns” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.