Reform’s Scottish ‘leader’ – the FIFA Peace Prize of Scottish politics
Speymouth
Spare a thought for poor wee Malkie Offord, over the years he’s thrown hundreds of thousands of pounds at the political scene in a bid to make himself relevant, firstly with his ludicrously misnamed and suspiciously well funded Vote No Borders astroturfing campaign during the 2014 independence referendum, a cringeworthy campaign which made no impact at all despite strenuous efforts on the part of the BBC to present it as a grassroots initiative. It was quickly rechristened Vote Nob Orders by the genuinely grassroots Yes movement and soon died of embarrassment. There is no evidence that it had the slightest effect on the final outcome. The campaign was most noted for making the false claim in one of its adverts that following independence, sick Scottish children would be denied treatment at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, a nasty and scaremongering claim which was made without consultation with the hospital which angrily insisted that the claim wasn’t true and demanded that the advert was withdrawn.
Malkie then threw £150,000 at the Tory party in an attempt to get elected to Holyrood, only to be rewarded with a lowly position on the Tory list in the Lothian region during the 2021 Scottish elections and failed to come close to getting elected. His selection as a list candidate did not go down well with other Tories, who slated it as “cronyism” and angrily told the Edinburgh Evening News: “It seems all you need to get an endorsement is to have deep pockets.”
Later in 2021 his efforts to buy himself into politics paid off when he was appointed as a Tory peer to the House of Lords. In his maiden speech he spoke of his support for the UK’s Net zero objectives, arguing that the UK could demonstrate global leadership on climate change by cutting emissions while continuing to grow its economy. Having seen that the Tories are never going to regain relevance in Scotland, he’s now jumped ship to Reform UK, a party which is vehemently opposed to Net Zero. It’s almost as though Malkie doesn’t have any principles at all beyond his own ego and deep belief in his entitlement to political influence. Who’d have thought it?
On Thursday it was going to be Malkie’s special day, the day when he’d finally get to be the centre of attention, or at least to bask in as much attention as Nigel would allow him to have, which wouldn’t be that much, because Nigel is to attention as a black hole is to light, he sucks it all into himself and destroys any competing light sources in his orbit. Malkie, who has a vast ego of his own, is learning that the hard way. At Reform’s Scottish press conference Nige announced to the press that he’d hand picked Malkie to be his messenger boy in Scotland. It was always going to be the Nigel Farage Show, Malkie was just a support act.
Malkie’s official title is leader of Reform UK in Scotland, but given that Reform UK does not actually have a separate Scottish organisation, or any Scottish specific policies, and no one has elected Malkie to be the head of this phantom party, his authority derives entirely from being personally selected by Nige, who could deselect him just as easily if Malkie doesn’t play ball, the title of Scottish Leader of Reform UK is as real as the FIFA Peace prize which was recently presented to Donald Trump by an obsequious Gianni Infantino. Being the Reform UK Scottish leader is very much the FIFA Peace Prize of Scottish politics, it’s a meaningless invented title of no significance given to a right wing politician to placate his huge ego and sense of entitlement. Malkie only got it because Reform UK’s sole MSP, the hapless Tory defect, sorry, defector, Graham Simpson, has all the charisma and charm of a torn plastic Lidl bag fluttering forlornly in the branches of a dead tree.
But life comes at you fast in politics, Malkie didn’t even get to be centre of attention adjacent at his first big press conference. Things quickly went off the rails as Malkie was malkied by the news that Tory leader Kemi Badenoch had booted Robert Jenrick, her erstwhile competitor for the Conservative leadership out of the shadow cabinet and suspended his party membership with immediate effect after receiving what she described as “clear, irrefutable evidence” that Jenrick was plotting to defect to Reform in a way that would create maximum political embarrassment to the Conservative party. That must have been bad given that the Tories main political talent lies in embarrassing themselves.
All of a sudden none of the press pack wanted to ask Malkie about his pretend new job. They were only interested in the other Conservative opportunist.
Reform presents itself as the party which is going to shake up British politics, but it is stuffed to the gills with former Tories. 14 former Conservative MPs, mostly from the swivel eyed end of the Tory party have jumped ship to Reform, as have hundreds of former Conservative councillors. Jenrick, if he does indeed join Reform, would merely be the latest. The list of former Tory MPs now in Reform includes such luminaries as Nadine Dorries, Andrea Jenkyns, and Ross Thomson, collectively the political embodiment of “You don’t have to be mad to work here but it helps.”
Reform has 21 councillors in Scotland, all but two of whom are former Tories. Reform is not a new party, it’s merely a new vehicle for the very worst aspects of the Conservative party which ran the Tories into the ground, wrought havoc and despair on the country as a whole, and who now seek to save their political necks with a cynical and astroturfing rebranding campaign funded by millionaires. Offord’s new political vehicle is as much an insurgent force in British politics as his Vote No Borders was an authentic grassroots campaign. But it’s no surprise that the self-seeking Offord is able to deny Reform’s racism to himself and claim it’s a party which stands for ordinary working class people. Reform is really Vote Nob Orders Mk II, no wonder Opportunistic Offord feels at home in it and is happy to abandon his former commitment to Net Zero and his claimed belief in no borders in return for a pretend title and a seat in Holyrood.
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