Scottish Conservative peers fail on UK reform

Former Conservative Business and Scottish Office Minister Lord Malcolm Offord has defected to Reform UK.

It was launched by Nigel Farage at a rally at the Macdonald Inchyra hotel in Falkirk on Saturday.

Lord Offord was the acting treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives and served on the Lords front bench from 2021 to 2024.

He told the rally that he planned to stand down from the Lords and campaign as a Reform candidate in the 2026 Holyrood election.

Announcing his defection, Lord Offord accused the Conservatives of “giving up” on Scotland.

He called the party “people’s, not political” and described it as a “party without vision.”

“I am concerned about Scottish politics, very concerned about what is happening in Scotland,” he said.

“And that is why I am leaving the Scottish Conservative Party, because I believe that the Scottish Conservative Party has given up on Scotland and, ladies and gentlemen, I cannot do that.”

He added: “Starting today, for the next five months, day and night, I will fight tirelessly with all of you for two goals.

“The first aim is to bring down this rotten SNP government after 18 years, and the second is to present a positive vision for Scotland within the UK, so that Scotland can once again be a prosperous, proud, healthy and happy country.”

Lord Offord, who founded the investment firm Badenoch and Co, was made a life peer in 2021 under Boris Johnson.

He had previously donated almost £150,000 to the Conservative Party.

Following his peerage, he became Baron Offord of Garvel, of Greenock in the County of Renfrew, and was appointed junior minister in the Scottish Office.

He also served as Minister of Exports from 2023 until the June 2024 general election.

He was previously director of the Vote No Borders campaign during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.

The group sparked controversy after being forced to remove a cinema advert which claimed Scots would lose access to London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital if they voted Yes.

The hospital complained about the message, saying it did not endorse the content and was not consulted before it was broadcast.

Lord Offord also stood as a Conservative list candidate for the Lothian region in the 2021 Holyrood election, but finished fifth and did not win any seats.

Farage said he was “delighted” to welcome Lord Offord to Reform and described his defection as “a brave and historic act”.

He added: “It will take Reform UK Scotland to a new level.”

Scottish Labor deputy leader Jackie Baillie called Reform a “party of failed Conservatives taking musical political chairs”.

She said: “This defection proves what we already know: the reformers are no longer even conservatives in disguise, they are simply conservatives – the same conservatives who broke the immigration system, crashed the economy and left Scottish workers to pay the price.

“This is not change, it’s the same failed politicians and the same failed ideas trying to divide our country.”

Malcolm Offord is not a household name, but Reform’s Scottish operation will be very happy to have him on board.

He has held several ministerial positions in the UK government and was one of the leading Conservative MPs in the House of Lords.

He wants to be a candidate in the next Holyrood elections. And he will bring political and business experience to the party.

Taking to the stage in Falkirk, he complained about the “monopolies” of Labor and the Conservatives.

He seems to have fallen in love with his former party.

The crowd was delighted to welcome him, despite his recent conservative past.

But some of his former colleagues aren’t too sad to see him go.

A member of the Scottish Conservative party sent me a message calling him a “treacherous snake”.

Oh.