Tight security, drama and Deacon Blue: the Nigel Farage show hits Kirkcaldy
The MP was in Scotland to unveil his party’s new leader north of the Border
There is nothing quite like a Nigel Farage press conference. First, there was the extraordinary level of security.
An airport-style metal detector had been erected within the lobby of Kirkcaldy’s Dean Park Hotel. Bags were searched on entry. Journalists had bottles of water confiscated, and The Scotsman’s photographer had her perfume taken away (it was returned).
Then there was the drama. Around 11 minutes in, Mr Farage was shown something on a mobile phone by an aide. He raised his eyebrows.
Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, had just been sacked by Tory leader Kemi Badenoch for “plotting to defect" to Reform. First question: was Mr Farage in talks with him?
“I’m very surprised that this news has broken,” the Reform leader said. “I never reveal private conversations with anybody.” He later confirmed he had, in fact, been talking to Mr Jenrick, but denied the existence of any deal.
“I’m going to give him a ring this afternoon,” he said. “I might buy him a drink, see what he wants to do.” Needless to say, Mr Jenrick later defected.
Of course, this conference had not been called to discuss Mr Jenrick, but rather to unveil Reform’s new Scottish leader. Malcolm Offord will take the party into the Holyrood election, but Mr Farage made clear he is still the one calling the shots.
Mr Offord defected to Reform last month. He was made a life peer in 2021, and served as a Scotland Office minister and business minister in the previous Tory administration at Westminster.
In Kirkcaldy, he signed an outsized letter alongside Mr Farage announcing his wish to retire from the House of Lords. “And with this, Lord Offord of Garvel becomes Malcolm from Greenock,” Mr Farage declared.
Alas, it is not so simple. A life peerage cannot be relinquished, although the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 enables a life peer to resign from being a member of the House.
Malcolm from Greenock is also, it should be noted, an extremely wealthy, yacht-owning former banker who, in 2024, reportedly spent more than £1.6 million on a property on the banks of Loch Lomond without needing a mortgage.
Asked how relatable this made him, Mr Farage joked: “You dreadful man, you’ve been successful. How awful. Why don’t we get more failures like Rachel Reeves running the country?”
Mr Offord was not someone born “with vast levels of privilege”, he added. “He’s done what he’s done because he’s got a good brain, he’s worked damn hard.”
The grafter from Greenock later refused to tell journalists his net worth. “For a start, it’s not something you just pluck out the air, because assets are not necessarily easily valued,” Mr Offord explained.
Asked what a yacht-owner knows about the cost-of-living crisis, he quoted Deacon Blue. “They’ll ask me how I got it,” he said. “I’ll say, I saved my money. They’ll say, isn’t she pretty, a ship called Dignity.”
Mr Offord told journalists it was “patronising” to question what he knows about the struggles of ordinary Reform voters.
“I come from a completely normal background,” he said. “I go to work every day with completely normal people. I go camping with normal people. My family still live in Greenock. I live a normal life.”
Well, kiss goodbye to that. You’re part of the Farage show now: it ain’t normal.
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