Farage tells potential Holyrood defectors to 'get in touch within days'
The Reform leader said the Scottish election will be a ‘two-horse race’ between his party and the SNP
Nigel Farage told potential Holyrood defectors to get in touch “within the next few days” if they want to jump ship as he announced a former Tory minister will be Reform’s leader in Scotland.
Malcolm Offord intends to retire from the House of Lords to run for the party in May’s Holyrood election.
In a press conference in Kirkcaldy, Mr Farage insisted the election will be a “two-horse race” between his party and the SNP.
“I think we could even surprise ourselves with just how many votes we manage to garner in this election,” he added.
In a further boost for Reform and a blow for the Conservatives, Robert Jenrick accused the Tories of lacking the “stomach for the radical change this country needs” as he defected to Mr Farage’s party after being sacked from Kemi Badenoch’s frontbench.
The Conservative leader, who was in Edinburgh on Thursday, sacked Mr Jenrick earlier in the day citing “irrefutable evidence that he was plotting” to jump ship in a “damaging” way.
Appearing at a Westminster press conference alongside Mr Farage, Mr Jenrick said: “I can’t kid myself any more. The party hasn’t changed and it won’t. The bulk of the party don’t get it. Don’t have the stomach for the radical change this country needs.”
Before leaving Fife for London to welcome Mr Jenrick to his party, Mr Farage said 100 Scottish candidates had been put through “intensive media training” over the weekend.
Mr Farage admitted Reform’s vetting had been “p*** poor” in the past.
“I promise you we are doing everything we can to make sure these candidates for the Scottish Parliament are vetted and are fit and proper people to put forward for the election,” he said.
Nathan Gill, the former leader of Reform in Wales, previously admitted taking bribes in return for making pro-Russian statements and is now serving a 10-and-a-half-year prison sentence.
Last year, former Conservative MSP Graham Simpson defected to Reform, becoming the party’s first Holyrood representative. There has since been widespread speculation others could follow suit.
Mr Farage was asked if it was too late for any other defectors to get a “decent spot” on the party’s lists.
"Thank you for giving me an opportunity to put a free advert out right now to anybody who is sitting in Holyrood in the Labour or Conservatives parties, who thinks they might want to do better with us - if they want to get on these lists, they better get in touch actually within the next few days,” he said.
Reform is due to unveil its slate of candidates for the Holyrood election at a special conference in the first week of March, while its Scotland-specific policies will be outlined in the coming weeks.
Noting that opinion polls have shown “some considerable shift” towards Reform, Mr Farage said: “I’m increasingly of the view that these elections on May 7 will be literally a two-horse race in Scotland between us and the SNP.
“I believe we will be seen as the main opposition because neither the Conservative Party nor Labour Party have been able to provide genuine, real coherence to much of the damage the SNP have done for Scotland.”
Mr Offord’s appointment as Reform’s Scottish leader comes just over a month after he defected from the Tories.
He was made a life peer in 2021 and served as a Scotland Office minister and business minister in the previous Conservative administration at Westminster, but Thursday’s press conference saw him sign paperwork to end his time in the House of Lords.
“And with this, Lord Offord of Garvel becomes Malcolm from Greenock,” Mr Farage said.
According to the House of Lords Library, a life peerage cannot be relinquished, but the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 enables a life peer to resign from being a member of the House.
Mr Farage said his party’s new Scottish leader had made a “brave and principled move”, adding: “After all, the House of Lords is a club for life, subsidised lunch, sleep on the benches all afternoon.”
He said Mr Offord had “given it all up” to stand for Reform in May.
However, he also made clear he is “ultimate leader” of Reform and can overrule Mr Offord.
“I am the leader of the party, I have quite a lot of power,” Mr Farage said. “I’m held to account by my board, if they think I’ve gone over the top then they will tell me so and act and if they wanted to, with the support of branches, they could remove me.
“But when it comes to day-to-day operations of this still start-up party, I regard myself as a political entrepreneur, I regard myself as the chief executive officer of what is effectively a company that we’re growing from a small to a medium to a big company and, yes, I have a very high degree of operational control and final decision-making.
“But do I think Malcolm and the team are going to come up with stuff that I disagree with? No. Why? Because we’ve talked about most of this already. I’m entirely confident that process will be smooth.”
Mr Offord said he had a mandate to produce a manifesto, despite not having been elected by the party’s purported 12,000 members in Scotland.
He said: “It’s a great honour to be named today as the new leader of Reform UK Scotland.
“I shall be campaigning hard between now and May 7, to communicate a positive vision of how we can all work together to make Scotland the most successful part of the UK in the next 10 years.
“We represent ordinary, decent, hardworking Scots who are fed up with mid-table mediocrity in Holyrood. Which is why we will be fielding Reform candidates in all 73 constituencies with one sole objective – to get Scotland back to the top of the table.
“This is an exciting time for Scotland. The election in May allows Scots to finally get rid of this rotten SNP Government who have had plenty of time to deliver prosperity for Scotland and have failed.”
The latest defections to Reform came as the first Scotland-wide poll of 2026 put the party neck-and-neck with Scottish Labour.
The SNP is on course to remain the largest party in Scotland on 61 seats, but will ultimately fall short of a majority, according to the Survation poll.
However, it suggests Reform UK and Scottish Labour will both finish on 18 seats.
A total of 34 per cent of voters said they would back John Swinney and the SNP on May 7 on the constituency vote, along with 28 per cent on the regional vote.
The poll, conducted for True North, also found 19 per cent of voters would back Reform UK on the constituency vote, compared to just 16 per cent for Scottish Labour. On the regional list vote, both parties are tied at 18 per cent.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who was also in Scotland on Thursday, refused to say whether he is putting Scots off voting Labour – or if his job could be on the line if his party performs badly in May.
Asked if his position could be at risk, Sir Keir would only say that his job “is to deliver for Scotland”.
Challenged on whether he is putting voters in Scotland off supporting Labour, the Prime Minister again said: “My job is to deliver for Scotland.”
Speaking on a visit to Perth, he made clear May’s election is not about his performance or his Government at Westminster, adding it is to decide “who governs Scotland”.
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