Lord Malcolm Offord quits the Conservatives, accusing the party of abandoning Scotland. His move gives Reform UK a high-profile boost ahead of the 2026 Holyrood election
Former Conservative business and Scotland Office minister Lord Malcolm Offord has defected to Reform UK, declaring that the Scottish Conservative Party has “given up on Scotland”. His switch was announced by Reform leader Nigel Farage at a rally in Falkirk on Saturday, where Lord Offord said he would resign from the House of Lords and stand as a candidate in the 2026 Holyrood elections.
Lord Offord, who served on the Conservative front bench in the House of Lords from 2021 to 2024 and most recently acted as the party’s spokesman on energy, was also the serving Treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives until his resignation. Speaking to Reform supporters at the Macdonald Inchyra Hotel, he launched a blistering attack on his former party, calling it “parochial, not political” and “a party without a vision”.
“I’m concerned for Scottish politics, very concerned about what happens in Scotland,” he told the crowd. “The Scottish Conservative Party, I believe, have given up on Scotland — and I can’t do that.”
Lord Offord pledged to campaign “day and night” over the next five months to help remove the SNP government after 18 years in power and promote what he described as a “positive vision for Scotland inside the UK — a prosperous, proud, healthy and happy country”.
Although peers cannot renounce a life peerage, they can resign their membership of the House of Lords. Under legislation passed earlier this year, members of the Lords are barred from serving as members of the Scottish Parliament, meaning Lord Offord must leave the chamber before standing for Holyrood.
Reform currently has one MSP — former Conservative Graham Simpson, who defected to the party in August. Farage described Offord’s move as “a brave and historic act”, saying he would take Reform UK Scotland “to a new level”.
The Scottish Conservatives dismissed the defection as a gift to the SNP. A party spokesperson said, “Any vote for Reform next year will only tighten the SNP’s grip on power at Holyrood. Nigel Farage has been clear he is fine with John Swinney staying as first minister, his party stood pro-independence candidates in the last election, and he is still courting others who would break up the UK.”
SNP MP Stephen Gethins said he was unsurprised by what he called a “convergence” between the Conservatives and Reform. He accused Farage of having a “dreadful track record”, warning that the SNP would challenge him strongly at the Holyrood elections. “Instead of leaning into Reform’s policy agenda, which has failed, as Labour and the Conservatives are doing, the SNP stands against everything Reform is for,” he said.
Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie rejected Reform as “a party of failed Conservatives playing political musical chairs”. She said the defection showed that Reform “aren’t even Tories in disguise anymore — they are just Tories”, adding that the same politicians who “collapsed the economy and left working Scots to pay the price” were now attempting to rebrand themselves.
Patrick Harvie, the Scottish Greens’ constitutional spokesman, said Reform UK represented “the super rich” and had “no interest in improving the lives of ordinary people and families”.
Lord Offord, founder of investment firm Badenoch and Co, was made a life peer in 2021 under Boris Johnson after donating nearly £150,000 to the Conservative Party. After entering the House of Lords as Baron Offord of Garvel, he served as a junior minister in the Scotland Office and later as minister for exports.
He previously directed the Vote No Borders campaign during the 2014 independence referendum, which faced controversy for a withdrawn cinema advert wrongly implying Scots would lose access to London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital under independence. Offord also stood unsuccessfully as a Conservative list candidate in the Lothian region in the 2021 Holyrood election.
