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Nigel Farage spoke to the largest the party's public meeting so far in Scotland, however declined to speak with the press corps afterwards. Instead, recently switched member of the House of Lords Malcolm Offord was left to responding to queries 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 sold-out rally of about 700 attendees at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk. The businessman, who worked as a Scotland Office minister in the previous administration and most recently served as treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to relinquish his seat in the Lords in order to stand for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.

The leader stated 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 spoke to the crowd following a difficult period which saw him launch a tirade against the BBC for questioning him regarding a report into claimed discriminatory and remarks as a youth. However, the leader avoided a planned media briefing after Saturday’s event.

When asked why his new party’s leader did not make himself available to answer mounting allegations about his past behaviour, Offord said: “That is a question for him to answer.”

Pressed on whether he believed an apology was necessary for the comments he is said to have made about Jewish students, Offord said: “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 rejected claims of dog-whistle politics. During his speech, Farage had doubled down on his remarks about the number of Glasgow schoolchildren who are not native English speakers by posing the question to the crowd: “Who authorised the complete transformation of Glasgow's demographics?”

Although Scotland's First Minister condemned the initial comments as “discriminatory”, and Keir Starmer labeled them “toxic and divisive”, the defector argued that Farage was “highlighting a factual issue that people are talking about on the doorstep”.

A Party on the Rise

The rally, filled with an lively and passionate audience of largely male, white and middle-aged supporters who bought tickets for the event, showcases Reform's increasing self-assurance before next May’s elections.

Although the SNP continues to lead in the polls, Reform UK has made substantial progress recently, securing 26% of the vote in its first Holyrood byelection test. After the collapse in support for Scottish Labour, the party has often relegated it to third lately, polling up to 22%.

Declaring that party membership north of the border had increased fourfold over the last twelve months to 12,000 members, a senior party official said he believed it could gain up to 20 MSPs in May, putting the party in “a very strong position” in the Scottish Parliament.

Campaign Rhetoric

Thomas Kerr, one of Reform’s 19 Scottish councillors, prompted a roar of approval as he referred to the leader as “Britain’s next prime minister”. He told supporters to “man the barricades as we take on the political establishment”, warning that “the next five months will be tough”.

Although the party has yet to produce any Scotland-specific policies, representatives vowed the party 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 in previous years he had been warned he “couldn't fill a small venue”.

Protests Nearby

As the event was taking place, not far away in Falkirk town centre, anti-immigration and anti-racist protesters were gathering for a now-regular weekly standoff outside a local hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers.

The organisers of the demonstrations 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 new arrivals and I think that is the source of a harmful narrative”.

However, he differentiated extremist opinions and people with “legitimate points” about strain on public services or neighbourhood security.