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Nigel Farage spoke to the largest Reform UK rally so far in Scotland, but avoided engaging with local journalists afterwards. Instead, newly defected peer Malcolm Offord was left to field questions on allegations of racism and anti-Jewish sentiment surrounding Farage.

A High-Profile Defection

The leader presented the former Conservative peer and wealthy businessman during a packed event of roughly seven hundred attendees at a hotel conference centre in central Scotland. Offord, who served as a junior minister for Scotland in the previous administration and was until recently treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, stated his plan to give up his peerage in order to stand for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.

The leader stated he was “extremely pleased” to greet Offord to the party. He described the switch as “a courageous and significant move”.

Avoiding Media Scrutiny

Farage addressed the rally after a turbulent week which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC for questioning him regarding a report into alleged racist 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: “You’ll need to ask him that question.”

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

Insisting on Fitness

The peer maintained that Farage was “morally fit” to be the country's leader and denied he was employing dog-whistle politics. During his speech, the leader had reiterated on his remarks about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who are not native English speakers by posing the question to the crowd: “Who voted for the wholesale change of the population of Glasgow?”

While the first minister, John Swinney condemned Farage’s original remarks as “discriminatory”, and the Labour leader called them “harmful and polarising”, Offord maintained that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.

A Party on the Rise

The event, filled with an energetic and enthused crowd of predominantly older, white male backers who each paid £6 to attend, showcases Reform's increasing self-assurance ahead of the Scottish vote.

Although the Scottish National Party remains ahead, the party has made substantial progress in the past year, securing 26% of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. Following Scottish Labour's decline, the party has often relegated it to third lately, polling up to 22%.

Announcing that party membership north of the border had quadrupled over the last twelve months to a running total of 12,000, a senior party official said he believed it could win around twenty parliamentary seats in May, which would place Reform in “a powerful situation” at Holyrood.

Campaign Rhetoric

Thomas Kerr, 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 “challenge the ruling class”, warning that “the coming campaign will be difficult”.

Despite not yet publishing any Scotland-specific policies, representatives pledged Reform would “take on the green blob and the net-zero grifters”.

The leader personally underlined his delight at the party’s emergence as a force 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”.

Protests Nearby

As the event was taking place, not far away in the heart of Falkirk, demonstrators with opposing views assembled for a now-regular weekly standoff near a hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.

A group coordinating protests said it was galvanised by a criminal case involving an asylum seeker. Speaking previously, First Minister John Swinney warned that “what the far right do 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 community safety.