Lord Offord named as Reform UK’s Scottish leader

Former Conservative minister Lord Offord has been named as Reform UK’s Scottish leader.

The ex-Scottish Tory treasurer was unveiled by party leader Nigel Farage at an event in Fife.

He will lead the party into May’s Scottish Parliament election, with Reform aiming to make a major electoral breakthrough north of the border.

At the event, Farage confirmed that he had held talks with Robert Jenrick, who had just been sacked from the Conservative frontbench for “plotting to defect”.

Lord Offord – who is stepping down from the Lords and standing for election to Holyrood – said he saw the election as a “two-horse race” with the SNP.

He said the party had more than 12,000 members in Scotland and a “really talented group of candidates”.

Lord Offord insisted the party would run a “positive” campaign after being questioned about a Reform UK social media advert featuring Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar that was branded “blatantly racist”.

Farage said about 100 Scottish candidates had undergone vetting and training in London.

The Reform UK leader told reporters: “I think we can surprise ourselves with just how many votes we manage to garner in these elections.”

He added: “A huge chunk of the Scottish electorate are looking for something different. And they’re tired of the decline this country has seen under SNP government.”

Farage spoke as UK Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch announced that she had sacked Tory shadow secretary Jenrick for “plotting to defect”.

The Reform leader confirmed he had spoken with Jenrick and “a number of very senior Conservatives”.

He said that for all of the talk of a supposed “Kemi bounce” a lot of Conservative senior politicians realise that the Tories will be “obliterated” in elections in Scotland, Wales and England in May.

Farage denied that he had signed a deal with Jenrick, but said he had “little doubt” that leaving the Conservatives to join Reform had been in the Tory frontbencher’s mind.

It was widely speculated that Lord Offord would be lined up to lead the party in Scotland following his defection from the Tories in December.

Several recent polls have suggested that Reform are on track to challenge Labour for second place behind the SNP in May’s election.

The party has one MSP, Graham Simpson, who defected from the Conservatives in August.

Last month, Reform secured its first success at the ballot box in Scotland by winning a council by-election in West Lothian.

Lord Offord served as a Tory frontbencher between 2021 and 2024.

Until December, he had been the party’s energy spokesman in the House of Lords.

The former minister announced last month that he intended to step down from the Lords and run as a Reform candidate for Holyrood.

As a life peer, Lord Offord’s peerage cannot be relinquished. However, he has applied to retire as a member of the House of Lords from 30 January, signing his resignation letter on stage with Farage.

The Scottish Parliament is currently considering a bill – tabled by Reform MSP Simpson – that would bar MSPs from also sitting as MPs or members of the House of Lords.

Lord Offord, who founded investment firm Badenoch and Co, was director of the Vote No Borders campaign during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.

He entered frontline politics in 2021 after being named a life peer by Boris Johnson, having previously donated almost £150,000 to the Conservative Party.

He became Baron Offord of Garvel and was appointed as a junior minister in the Scotland Office.

Lord Offord also served as a minister of exports from 2023 until the general election in 2024.