Offord: It’s a great shame groups have to patrol Glasgow streets at night

Reform UK’s leader in Scotland has said it is a “shame” organised groups have to patrol Glasgow’s streets at night.

Malcolm Offord told journalists he joined a patrol with the group North2South, which claims to be protecting women and girls.

Speaking to the Times on Friday, he said there are “large groups of foreign men” on the streets of Glasgow late at night.

Asked how he knew the men were foreign, Mr Offord said it was “perfectly obvious when you walk through” the city centre.

During a press conference in Greenock, Inverclyde, on Friday, Mr Offord rejected claims the group are “vigilantes”, saying they are a “street patrol” who assist those “in a state of inebriation”, and they are on the streets to help the community.

“It started off because there was a feeling from women and girls, they didn’t feel safe,” he said.

“It’s not for me to judge that – if that’s what they are saying to their community. What do you do, ignore that? Or do you say, actually, we’ve got an issue?

“I think it’s a great shame that we have this in our society.

“We don’t want this in our society, but don’t blame the people who are trying to look after their own.

“Blame civic society… those in control of the system.

“It’s the system that’s wrong, don’t blame people. People are smart, they just follow the incentive.

“At the moment, we’re giving an incentive to a group of people to come to Scotland – don’t blame them, because they’re just being smart.

“Blame the system, because the system shouldn’t be doing that, shouldn’t be creating that dislocation and it shouldn’t be to the disadvantage of local people.”

The Reform UK Scottish leader used also the press conference to announce he will be standing in Inverclyde at May’s election, a constituency which includes his native Greenock.

He said: “The question then came when I joined Reform, where would I stand?

“For me, there was only one place I wanted to do that, to come here, back to Inverclyde, for a number of reasons.

“Obviously, it’s my hometown, but also because in a way Inverclyde is almost like a microcosm of Scotland and the issues we need to deal with in Scotland as a whole, we need to deal with in Inverclyde.

“It’s almost like if we can solve one, we can solve the other.”