{"id":301882,"date":"2025-12-06T14:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T14:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/301882\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T14:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T14:36:08","slug":"nigel-farage-announces-surprise-scotland-defection-ahead-of-holyrood-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/301882\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigel Farage announces surprise Scotland defection ahead of Holyrood elections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has announced a surprise defection from the Conservatives while speaking in Scotland. <\/p>\n<p>Lord Offord of Garvel became the first member of the House of Lords to join Reform as he announced his departure from the Conservative Party. <\/p>\n<p>The shock announcement was made while Mr Farage was addressing supporters in Falkirk, Scotland. <\/p>\n<p>Malcolm Offord, from Greenock in the County of Renfrewshire, became a life peer in 2021. <\/p>\n<p>He brings extensive political experience to Reform, having served as Minister of State for Scotland between 2021 and 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Lord Offord was also Minister of State for Exports between 2023 and 2024. <\/p>\n<p>Welcoming the former Tory peer, Mr Farage said: \u201cI am delighted to welcome Malcolm to Reform. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a brave and historic act. He will take Reform UK Scotland to a new level,\u201d he declared amid raucous applause.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"d467b\" data-rm-shortcode-id=\"ed92cb51e11ac981af9080362173c3ad\" data-rm-shortcode-name=\"rebelmouse-image\" class=\"rm-shortcode rm-lazyloadable-image \" lazy-loadable=\"true\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%201245%20700'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" data-runner-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/lord-offord-of-garvel.png\" width=\"1245\" height=\"700\" alt=\"Lord Offord of Garvel\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Lord Offord of Garvel has joined Reform <\/p>\n<p> | <\/p>\n<p>GB NEWS<\/p>\n<p>Lord Offord said: \u201cI am delighted to join Reform UK Scotland. We have an important election coming up in May next year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He continued: \u201cScotland is crying out for a centre-right narrative to make the country prosperous once again. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cScotland needs Reform and Reform is coming to Scotland,\u201d the peer said to cheers in the room.<\/p>\n<p>MORE TO FOLLOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has announced a surprise defection from the Conservatives while speaking in Scotland. Lord&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,229,70,56,44208,54,55],"class_list":["post-301882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-reform-uk","tag-uk","tag-uk-politics","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}