🔗 Share this article Reform UK Leader Addresses Movement's Largest Gathering in Scotland Amid Controversy and High-Profile Switch The Reform UK figurehead spoke to the largest the party's rally held in Scotland to date, but avoided engaging with the press corps afterwards. In his place, newly defected member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord took on the task of field questions on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding the party leader. Welcoming a New Recruit The leader presented the former Conservative peer 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 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 Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections. Farage said he was “delighted” to greet Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection as “a brave and historic act”. Dodging the Press Farage addressed the rally following a difficult period which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour as a youth. But, Farage dodged the expected press huddle post-rally. Questioned why Farage did not make himself available to address growing claims about his past behaviour, the new recruit responded: “That is a question for him to answer.” Pressed on if he thought Farage should apologise for his alleged remarks about Jewish students, he stated: “That is a matter for him to deliberate on with his team.” Insisting on Fitness The peer maintained that Farage was “morally fit” to be prime minister and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. While addressing supporters, the leader had reiterated on his remarks 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?” Although Scotland's First Minister criticised the initial comments as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer called them “toxic and divisive”, 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 bought tickets for the event, highlights Reform's increasing self-assurance ahead of the Scottish vote. Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has made substantial progress recently, achieving a quarter of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place in recent months, with support reaching over a fifth. Declaring that Reform UK membership in Scotland had quadrupled over the last twelve months to 12,000 members, a senior party official stated his belief it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, which would place Reform in “a powerful situation” in the Scottish Parliament. Fighting Talk Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, prompted a roar of approval as he referred to the leader as “the future PM of the UK”. He instructed the crowd to “prepare for a fight” as we “challenge the ruling class”, warning 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 Reform's rise as a significant player in the political scene in Scotland in the last year, admitting to the audience that he was once told he “wouldn’t get 20 people in a room”. Local Context As the event was taking place, a few miles west in Falkirk town centre, demonstrators with opposing views were gathering for a now-regular weekly standoff outside a local hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers. A group coordinating protests stated they were motivated by a serious local crime. In an interview, First Minister John Swinney warned that the tactic of the far-right is to assign responsibility … to new arrivals and I think that is the root of the poison”. He also made a clear distinction between those who hold far-right views and people with “legitimate points” about pressure on local services or community safety.