Three Scots Reform candidates backed independence, says Malcolm Offord
The Scottish Reform leader said at a press conference in Aberdeen that a “small number” of his candidates had backed leaving the UK but that “it doesn’t matter”.
Three Scots Reform UK candidates have supported independence, Malcolm Offord has confirmed.
The Scottish Reform leader said at a press conference in Aberdeen that a “small number” of his candidates had backed leaving the UK but that “it doesn’t matter”.
Dumfriesshire candidate David Kirkwood voted Yes in 2014 and says he hasn’t changed his mind on independence.
Perthshire North candidate Kenneth Morton also voted Yes and told a recent hustings that he’s relaxed about another referendum taking place.
It is unclear who the third candidate is.
When asked how many of his candidates had supported independence, Mr Offord said: “We have a small number. I’m going to name... We’ve got three people out of 73 have had a tendency in the past.
“It doesn’t matter. They’re on their journey to where they... What they want is Scotland to be the most successful part of the UK and they feel badly, badly let down with the SNP, who it turns out, are not serious about anything other than staying in power for another five years.”
Mr Offord then declined to name who the candidates were when approached by a journalist after the press conference.
Reform UK’s campaign in Scotland has been chaotic so far, with several candidates’ controversial comments on social media being unearthed.
Several candidates have also stood down after being selected.
When asked if the vetting process flagged controversial comments the candidates had made on social media, Mr Offord said: “We had a very comprehensive vetting process.
“At the end of the day we believe in something in Scotland, which is the right of free speech.
“We don’t always agree with what people... everyone says. And sometimes we actually feel that we... personally, I would not say some of those comments.
“But also, we’re talking about a number of people who, as I say, are real people who are on their journey to public life, and I’m not here to judge people’s previous opinions.
“So long as we are clear that in the project that we are promoting, that we are honest and clear about what we are trying to do.
“It’s a slippery slope going down into everyone’s Twitter account over the last 10 years and I took a decision, that we’re not going to do that.”
When asked if he did know about the comments, Mr Offord replied: “Yeah.”
Recent polls have suggested that support for Reform has fallen since Mr Offord was made leader in January.
When asked if this was because of his leadership, deputy Reform UK leader Richard Tice said: “You may have missed actually that polls don’t go up in a straight line.
“We’d love for them to but the higher the polls go, it gets harder to increase them ever further. So that’s actually what happened across the UK.”
He added: “There’s a lot of shy Reformers out there who are delighted to actually vote Reform but sometimes when someone puts a survey in front of them, they might just wonder.”
When asked by The Scotsman why they were shy, Mr Tice said: “Because some people like your good friends in the press might be sometimes a little bit beastly to them, I don’t know.”
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