To Falkirk, where Nigel Farage has flown ahead of the Holyrood elections – to announce another big name member of Reform UK. Now Lord Offord has jumped ship to Reform – and he intends to stand for election in Scotland next year. The businessman was given a peerage in 2021 by Boris Johnson and even served as a minister of exports from 2023 until the election the following year. Malcolm Offord’s move marks the latest high-profile defection to Reform UK, its first member of the House of Lords – and Steerpike has heard whisperings he could become the party’s Scottish leader next year…
Farage’s party is polling at around 20 per cent north of the border – and senior party figures tell Mr S that they believe they will become the official opposition party in Holyrood next year, bumping the Scottish Tories into third or even fourth place. While Reform is planning to stand a candidate in every constituency seat, its organisational team remains fairly small – though Steerpike hears two new Scottish press officers may be hired shortly. How interesting…
It’s another blow for Russell Findlay’s Tory party, which has lost a number of councillors to Reform – as well as MSP Graham Simpson. Reform UK ruffled feathers earlier this week by announcing that ‘nearly one in three schoolchildren in Glasgow do not speak English as their first language’ and labelling this as ‘culture smashing’. However the party has a sympathetic base in Falkirk – a hotspot for migrant hotel protests – and there was certainly no shortage of supporters turning out for Farage today.
For his part, Lord Offord said:
The first objective is to remove this rotten SNP government after 18 years, and the second is to present a positive vision for Scotland inside the UK, to restore Scotland to being a prosperous, proud, healthy and happy country.
I’m concerned for Scottish politics, very concerned about what happens in Scotland. And that’s why I’m leaving the Scottish Conservative Party, because the Scottish Conservative Party, I believe, have given up on Scotland and, ladies and gentlemen, I can’t do that.
Who’ll be next? Stay tuned…
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