🔗 Share this article Nigel Farage Addresses Party's Largest Scottish Rally Following Scrutiny and Defection Nigel Farage spoke to the largest Reform UK public meeting held in Scotland to date, but avoided engaging with local journalists following the event. Instead, recently switched member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord was left to responding to queries on claims of discriminatory behaviour and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding Farage. A High-Profile Defection Farage introduced the ex-Tory lord and millionaire donor during a sold-out rally of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. The businessman, who worked as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and was until recently the Scottish Tory party's chief financial officer, announced his intention to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to become a candidate for the party in the upcoming Scottish parliament vote. Farage said he was “delighted” to welcome the new member. He called the peer’s defection as “a courageous and significant move”. Dodging the Press The Reform leader addressed the rally after a turbulent week which included him delivering a tirade against the BBC after they quizzed him about an investigation into claimed discriminatory and antisemitic behaviour from his teenage years. However, the leader avoided a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event. Questioned why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations about his past behaviour, the new recruit responded: “That is a question for him to answer.” Challenged about 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 The peer maintained that the leader is “morally fit” to be prime minister and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about pupils in Glasgow who are not native English speakers by asking the rally: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?” While Scotland's First Minister criticised Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer called them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that his new leader was “highlighting a factual issue that “voters are discussing”. Growing Confidence The rally, attended by an lively and passionate audience of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who each paid £6 to attend, showcases the party’s growing confidence ahead of the Scottish vote. While the Scottish National Party remains ahead, Reform UK has gained significant ground in the past year, securing 26% of the vote in a recent parliamentary by-election. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, Reform has regularly pushed it into third place in recent months, polling up to 22%. Announcing that party membership north of the border had quadrupled in the past year to 12,000 members, the party chair, David Bull said he believed it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, which would place Reform in “a very strong position” in the Scottish Parliament. 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 instructed the crowd to “prepare for a fight” as we “challenge the ruling class”, warning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”. Despite not yet publishing a distinct policy platform for Scotland, representatives vowed the party would “confront climate activists and those profiting from green policies”. Farage himself underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force in Scottish politics over the past 12 months, confessing to supporters that he was once told he “couldn't fill a small venue”. Local Context Meanwhile, a few miles west in the heart of Falkirk, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters assembled for what have become regular weekly confrontations 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 warned that the tactic of the far-right is to apportion the blame … 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 strain on public services or neighbourhood security.