Some 40% of Reform candidates are former Tories, Lord Offord says

Almost half of Reform’s 73 candidates for Holyrood are former Conservative members, the party’s Scottish leader has said.

The party both north and south of the border has been criticised by opponents for being made up largely of disaffected people from other parties, mainly the Conservatives.

Speaking during an event hosted by the think tank Enlighten Scotland, Malcolm Offord – the former Tory peer and businessman – said the party would be standing in all of Scotland’s constituencies ahead of the Reform candidate announcement and manifesto launch next Thursday.

“Only 40% of our 73 candidates have ever been members of the Conservative Party,” the former Tory minister said.

When told that was “quite a lot” by the think tank’s director Chris Deerin, the Reform leader in Scotland said: “But it’s not like England-shire.”

Reform’s only current MSP Graham Simpson defected from the Conservatives, the same path taken by Lord Offord and other senior party figures like councillors Thomas Kerr and Ross Lambie – the candidate who came a close third in a Lanarkshire by-election last year.

A spokesman for the Scottish Tories said: “Pro-UK voters will be most keen to see how many independence-supporting candidates Reform stand just like they did in the general election.

“Any former Conservative who is involved with Nigel Farage must accept that they are now actively risking the Union.

“Lord Offord has made it clear he’s happy to work with nationalists and is open to another independence referendum.

“The best way of stopping an SNP majority and their fresh push to break up the UK is to use your peach ballot to vote for the Scottish Conservatives who will always stand up for Scotland’s place in the Union.”

Scottish Labour deputy leader Dame Jackie Baillie said Reform “are simply the Tories in disguise”, adding: “Malcolm Offord donated thousands of pounds to help fund the Tories for years and served as a minister under Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. Now, he wants to pack Reform with even more Tories.

“This comes just weeks after the defections of ex-Tory ministers Robert Jenrick, Nadhim Zahawi and Suella Braverman. The same people who screwed the country before now want to do so again.

“Lord Offord and Nigel Farage don’t care about Scotland, they don’t understand Scotland and they don’t give a damn about Scotland.

“The reality is Reform cannot win in Scotland and they cannot beat the SNP. In fact, a vote for Reform just lets the SNP cling on to power for another decade.”

May’s election, she added, is a “straight fight” between Labour and the SNP.

SNP MSP Stuart McMillan said: “Nigel Farage and his band of failed Tories do not care a jot about our communities – Scotland has rejected the Tories since the 1950s and no amount of re-branding changes their real political views.

“Given a whiff of power, Farage and his Scottish leader would charge hard-working Scots to access our vital NHS, forcing an American-style insurance system on us – just imagine what they’d do with the rest of our public services.

“The people of Scotland are fed up with the Westminster establishment – whether it is Farage or the Labour Party, neither works for Scotland.”

Reform announced plans earlier this year to cut spending in order to fund a cut in income taxes at a cost of £2 billion, with Scotland’s more than 130 public bodies on the chopping block if the party wins power in May.

Speaking at the event, Lord Offord suggested scrapping all of the quangos and deciding which ones to reinstate.

“We can run through any number of them,” he said.

“You might start by saying all of them, and then work backwards to which ones you actually want to keep.”

He added: “We need to find £2 billion, we’ve got £1 billion in ideological spending, £6.5 billion in quangos, that’s £7.5 billion.

“You’re asking me, can we find £2 billion out of £7.5 billion, the answer is yes.

“As I said before, my instinct would actually be to say that they’re all abolished until we work out which ones we really want to keep.”