'No-show Nigel' as Farage dodges media and protesters during a whirlwind farce in Hamilton
Nigel Farage ducked media and protesters on a chaotic visit to Scotland.
We were promised a circus - but Nigel Farage’s billed visit to South Lanarkshire was a chaotic mess that played right into the hands of Anas Sarwar’s Scottish Labour party.
In the end, Mr Farage hid away from press and protesters and Hamilton was left watching two sets of opposing campaigners hurling abuse at each other over a parked Ford Fiesta.
More than half of the Scottish political press waited for the Reform UK leader to turn up, as promised, in an open-top bus in a hotel car park, a stone’s throw from the SNP campaign HQ in Hamilton. Mr Farage didn’t show up.
It was always going to be a fleeting visit. Mr Farage had spent the morning in Aberdeen, shouting in favour of drilling for more oil and gas and chastising journalists for apparently giving away the location of his event to protesters.
For a man who comes across as oozing self-confidence and claiming to speak for real people, Mr Farage’s whistle-stop tour of Scotland has shown he has incredibly thin skin.
Reform’s press team billed an afternoon “walkabout” in Hamilton where Mr Farage would be out and about meeting voters. Anyone who has tried to deal with Reform’s press team knows details are subject to change, but the Hamilton no-show was on another scale.
Scotland’s media was gathered in a Premier Inn car park where, journalists were told earlier by the party’s most high-profile defected councillor Thomas Kerr that Mr Farage would be arriving.
It was a farcical situation, given there were senior SNP folk including Finance Secretary Shona Robison, walking through the car park to retrieve their vehicles, after a day of campaigning for their candidate, Katy Loudon.
But it eventually emerged through journalist gossip that Mr Farage had instead gone for a walkabout in Larkhall, just up the road. The town was once branded Scotland’s most sectarian and has green traffic lights protected by metal cages after a spate of Rangers fans took out their angst on the colour green.
A quick phone call to a Reform press officer told journalists he was still coming to the now-bustling car park. But it soon materialised that was not true at all and in fact, Mr Farage had been shuffled into the backdoor of the Reform office at the top of the town.
“He’s even cancelled on Sky News”, one journalist shouted, as it became clear Mr Farage was not coming.
A flurry of now-hacked-off hacks trudged back up the town centre to Reform’s office where an anti-racist and anti-fascist protest had camped outside the HQ. Renowned establishment irritant Sean Clerkin ramped up the volume, megaphone in hand.
“Refugees welcome here” and “Farage is a fascist” were bellowed, and eventually caught the attention of some locals in the pro-Farage camp.
This all took place across a narrow part-pedestrianised street, outside a Baynes bakery - while a handful of police officers tried to keep traffic moving.
But the shouting match continued and culminated in Mr Clerkin and socialist protesters exchanging slogans with a handful of pro-Farage supporters over the top of a parked Ford Fiesta. All the while, socialists were still trying to flog their newspapers amid the chaos.
Mr Farage had been into the Reform office and courtyard through the back door, met party activists and fled to catch his plane back south from Glasgow Airport.
READ MORE: Two more Scottish councillors defect to Reform as Nigel Farage doubles down on 'sectarian' claims
His no-show, however Reform will spin it, was a complete farce and the last thing the party needed. It is exactly how Scottish Labour would have hoped it would go. One senior Labour insider said he would have “bitten off my hand” for how the day had unfolded.
The tetchy protests, which included a full shouting match between two opponents in the street over the NHS were happening close to Scottish Labour’s HQ for their candidate, Davy Russell.
Earlier, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar had spoken to journalists across the road from where the melee erupted, being interrupted by at least two locals who had bumped into him previously.
“We need to stop meeting like this”, one lady joked.
“People will start talking”, he replied.
Mr Sarwar, who has been accused of “obsessing” over race by Mr Farage, was all smiles as he told journalists “the circus is coming to town”, adding that the Reform UK leader’s rhetoric on a cut to funding for Scotland has “done us a favour”.
And the mayhem, if it will have any impact at all, is likely to only boost Labour’s chances at Thursday's by-election.
After using his press conference in Aberdeen to call for the end to the Barnett formula and failing to show up for his own media call, Mr Farage may only have damaged his party’s chances.
He also admitted that it is very unlikely that Reform will win Thursday’s by-election - something Labour has been screaming into the void for the last two weeks.
Reform could quite feasibly come in second place in that crunch vote, in what would be a car crash for Mr Sarwar and Scottish Labour.
But if Mr Farage cannot take Scotland more seriously ahead of next year’s Holyrood election, it could easily all come crashing down for Reform - at least north of the Border.
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