Reform UK MSP says Offord still fit to lead Scottish party after homophobic joke

Reform UK’s only MSP has said Lord Malcolm Offord is still fit to lead the Scottish party after a homophobic joke resurfaced from 2018.

Lord Offord has apologised and denied he is homophobic after it emerged he made a joke about the late George Michael while giving a speech in 2018.

Graham Simpson, Reform UK MSP for Central Scotland, told media at the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday: “I don’t know what the joke was, I’ve not seen it. I don’t want to see it. ”

When asked if he thinks Lord Offord is still fit to lead the party, Mr Simpson said: “He is.”

Speaking in Holyrood, First Minister John Swinney said the joke was “completely unacceptable and intolerant”.

“If that’s what he thinks and feels, he’s got no role to perform in Scottish politics,” he said of Lord Offord.

“He’s unfit to be leader of any political party, unfit to be a member of the Scottish Parliament with views and attitudes like that.

“The thing that would worry me, given what I’ve seen of the performance around Reform events, was that if he was to tell that joke at a Reform conference, I suspect lots of people would laugh and applaud, based on what I saw of the launch last week, so I think we’ve got to be really careful as a country about where we’re heading and Reform have got no part to play in it if they represent views of intolerance, prejudice and hatred of that type.”

Lord Offord is said to have told the joke while giving a Burns Night speech at the London Scottish rugby club, where he had been chairman at the time.

It is understood the jest had mocked the Wham singer’s grieving boyfriend, Fadi Fawaz.

A man who had been in the audience told the Daily Record newspaper it had been “a crude, bad taste and insulting spectacle”.

“It is utterly bizarre that anyone would get up and make a speech in a room with 200 people and say something like that,” he said.

“It was so shocking I’ve not forgotten it.”

Lord Offord issued a statement, seen by the BBC, in which he apologised for the joke and described it as “a clumsy mistake”.

“I instantly regretted it and recognised that it was totally inappropriate and took responsibility for what I had said,” he said.

He added: “This was a clumsy mistake that I immediately acknowledged and acted upon. I am not homophobic.

“I am someone who accepts accountability, owns my actions, and makes amends where needed. That is who I am.”