Malcolm Offord has today quit Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives to join Reform UK. The peer was unveiled at a press conference today in Falkirk, as Nigel Farage’s party ramp up their campaigning ahead of the Holyrood elections next year. Offord, a former minister, becomes the second sitting frontbencher to quit the Conservatives in recent months, following Danny Kruger’s departure in September. It means that Reform UK now boast their first peer in the House of Lords. Offord will stand down from the Upper House if he is elected to the Scottish Parliament in May.
It is worth remembering that Offord enthusiastically backed Kemi Badenoch for leader
Offord cited his Unionism as the main motive for his defection. He told today’s press conference that the ‘first objective is to remove this rotten SNP government’ with the second being ‘to present vision for Scotland inside the UK.’ His criticisms of his former party were strikingly pointed, accusing the Conservatives of ‘giving up’ on Scotland. He called the Tories ‘parochial, not political’ and described them as a ‘party without a vision.’ A subsequent Reform UK press release quoted Offord as saying that ‘Scotland is crying out for a centre-right narrative.’ This is a near-identical form of words to those used by Kruger in September – despite the insistence by some in Reform that their party defies the conventional political axis.
Within Farage’s party, there are plans to make the most of Offord’s experience in government. One senior aide suggests that he will bolster Kruger’s work meeting former and current members of the Senior Civil Service to discuss the structure of Whitehall. Further announcements are planned soon about the ‘size and shape’ of a future Reform government. The source says that ‘At the heart of this is a plan to make ministers directly responsible for what their Departments do. For that we need great people to be ministers, and we are actively recruiting talent – like Malcolm Offord – who can serve in government, whether in Westminster or the devolved administrations.’
It is fair to say that Offord’s decision has come as a surprise to some of his now former Tory colleagues. One senior MP described it as ‘A kick in the bollocks’ pointing out that the peer was ‘running the energy review until a few months ago – it’s a genuine shock’. But a veteran Tory counters by claiming that Offord had become ‘detached from the Conservative family, doing little work and mostly moaning about not getting more preferment.’ They claim that as a party treasurer ‘he failed to raise any money while others delivered record amounts’ and that ‘the only thing bigger than his ego was his lack of action and ability for self promotion.’
It is worth remembering that, unlike Kruger, Offord enthusiastically backed Kemi Badenoch for leader, describing her as ‘a leader who embodies conservative values.’ He served as a minister under three successive Prime Ministers: Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. It is true that he only enjoys a limited public profile. But while some within the Tories might try to rubbish their erstwhile spokesman as man, it is his reasoning that will prove harder to dismiss. Offord’s argument for defecting was not about the respective personalities of Farage and Badenoch, but rather the institutional strength of Reform versus the Tories.
With Farage’s party now polling at 20 per cent in Scotland, the Conservatives risk losing their status in May as the primary vehicle for centre-right Unionism north of the border. If that goes then the narrow path to power in 2029 for Badenoch looks even more challenging.
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