There is a plastic bag floating through Falkirk’s main high street. As it tumbles past, it wraps itself around a lamppost outside a popular pizza spot, “Sal’s Famous.”
On the post itself, a spread of stickers creates a political mosaic. “Trans liberation now” overlaps “Alba Gu Brath,” which sits adjacent to a Reform UK logo.
The party’s tent draws attention with its bright turquoise tarp in the centre of town, where a small crowd of men is gathered below its metal legs and between its countless flyers.
A few months ago, Nigel Farage came to Falkirk. His troupe of supporters and colleagues hosted a conference at a swanky four-star hotel, the Macdonald Inchyra, where Malcolm Offord’s defection to Reform UK was announced. The former Lord has since taken up the role of leading the rather oxymoronic Reform UK Scotland.
Inside, Reform Councillor for Renfrew and North Braehead, Jamie McGuire, told me he was feeling “extremely optimistic ahead of the Scottish Parliamentary Elections.
“It’s not just because of what we saw in the room today, it’s what we’re actually seeing in the streets.”
Jamie McGuire, Reform UK Councillor
Though bagpipes blared from inside the conference room, outside a large-scale protest was organised against Farage’s appearance, and hundreds took coaches from Edinburgh and Glasgow to pool together in Callendar Park.
A variety of groups flocked together, from Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) to Your Party supporters, Student Communist Groups, and the ever-present Falkirk for All.
One supporter I spoke to at the protest said: “We’re terrified of the rise of fascism and racism, particularly in Scotland, where we felt for a long time we were immune from it.”
“It’s really important that we fight, otherwise we’re in a lot of trouble.”
Protester at Callendar Park.
Despite the many negative reactions, polling shows that Reform UK comes second in Holyrood voting intention as of January this year, with the SNP still taking first place.
In the Scottish Electoral Region where Falkirk sits, Central Scotland, 24% of respondents intend to vote for Reform UK, compared with 42% for the SNP, according to IPSOS data.
More so even than Glasgow or Edinburgh, this small town, unextraordinary from any other place in Scotland, has become the beating heart of this country’s political debate.
Falkirk is a microcosm of polarisation, and sitting at the centre of it, a few miles from the opulent Macdonald Inchyra, is the Cladhan Hotel.
The building’s grey and white concrete facade is faded and crumbling in the joints. All the windows have their white blinds sharply shut, and the only conceivable form of life seems to be a stack of yoghurt pots left by a cill.
Outside, police officers are constantly stationed. Arguably, even more constantly than the group straddling the pavement, who dangle Union Jacks, Saltires, and the Rampant Lion across a frail metal barrier, meant to separate them from the men living across the road.
The Cladhan has been a housing site for asylum seekers since 2022, and ever since has attracted controversy and protest from all sides.
This chaotic atmosphere only grew stronger after one of the hotel’s former residents, Sadeq Nikzad, was jailed in 2025 for the rape of a 15-year-old girl in Falkirk.
The same year, just months later, another Cladhan resident, Muhammad Sheikhi, appeared in court for the alleged sexual assault of a woman in Kerse Lane.
Very quickly following these cases, protest groups began to spring up in the region under various names.
First, there was “Save Our Future and Our Kids Future” (SOF), a group run by Connor Graham, largely organised via Facebook in the aftermath of Nikzad’s crimes that year.
This group remained active up until January of this year, when Graham faced sentencing for abusing a police officer. He announced the disbandment of the group due to the presence of far-right organisations such as “Patriotic Alternative”(PA) and the “Homeland Party.”
In fact, around the time of Farage’s visit to Falkirk, Patriotic Alternative (PA), a white nationalist group, announced on Telegram that it was remaining actively involved in protests outside the hotel.
On the day I visit in February, the group protesting opposite the hotel has decided to call itself “Voices for Falkirk” (VFF) and sports a shiny AI-generated banner. Images of the Kelpies eclipse the Falkirk Wheel, in blue hues, as the group’s new motto proclaims: “Community-led. Peaceful. Accountable.”
Just a metre to the left, under the usual flurry of Union Jacks and Saltires, a crudely painted banner says “FREE SAM MELIA,” a neo-nazi, jailed in 2024 for inciting racial hatred.
A small group of counter-protesters is allowed to stand within the grounds of the hotel car park, their equally uncanny banners spread out over a fence. Some remain zipped up, hoodies and skull-shaped masks covering their faces as they livestream themselves.
On the other side of town, the run-down Unison building’s rusty sidestreet sign welcomes a stream of people to celebrate the opening of Falkirk’s Trade Union Hub. Supporters from Stand Up To Rascism and Your Party had just arrived at the Grahamston train station, accompanied by Falkirk for All.
They are gathering to “Unite against the far right,” a slogan commonly repeated across their advertisements. A few police officers monitor the building outside, as a group of agitators hurls insults at attendees.
The two main groups, Falkirk for All (FFA) and Voices for Falkirk (VFF), remain in constant battle. They both claim to speak for the community, and yet the community itself remains hard to locate amid the anger on both sides.
Falkirk is a place that, on the surface, seems like a normal town in the Central Belt, but when you look closely, the division seems to run so much deeper than in bigger cities.
If you take a look at the high street today, it’s a difficult place to pin down. A spray-painted hammer and sickle in pink mounts a wall across from the demolition zone of the old Callendar Square shopping centre. Despite the gloomy look of its crumbling bricks, Falkirk council promises new facilities meant to uplift the town, and sure enough, around the corner, a squad of council workers is crouched in the dirt, planting saplings in the shade of the site’s billboard.
Further down the road, underneath the huge tower blocks overlooking the Cladhan Hotel, there’s a gym, and hung above its doors, a mangled Saltire is twisted up in the wind. It’s difficult to tell what it’s trying to say.
Symbols are everywhere in Falkirk, but agreement about their meaning is much harder to find.
