Reform's Scottish leader defends Labour deal claim

Reform UK's Scottish leader says he is standing by his claim that Scottish Labour's leader told him he wanted to work together against the SNP.

Malcolm Offord made the allegation during a leaders debate on Channel 4 after Anas Sarwar accused Reform of racism and criticised comments made by one of the party's candidates.

Offord said Sarwar's remarks did not square with him "bouncing up to me" at a previous event and "saying we need to work together, Reform and Labour, to remove the SNP".

Sarwar said the claim was "nonsense" and later described it as "a desperate lie from a desperate man" - but Offord told BBC Scotland that he stood by what he had said.

Reform's Scottish leader had been criticised during the debate over his party's billboard adverts which showed a small boat with asylum seekers under the slogan "Scotland is at breaking point".

SNP leader John Swinney said the poster had "incited tension and division", but it was defended by Offord

"The idea of that billboard was to say illegal asylum seekers, they come into England, but they come to Scotland, they come to Glasgow," he said.

"What Reform is doing is honestly reflecting the views of local Scottish people, especially in our working class communities who feel they are being pushed to the back of the queue."

Sarwar said Reform had previously spent thousands of pounds on adverts questioning his loyalty to his country.

Accusing the party of racism, he said one of Reform's candidates wanted to deport his children and repeatedly asked: "Where do you want them to go, Malcolm?"

Offord replied that Sarwar's remarks did "not square with you coming up to me at the start of this campaign, bouncing up to me in Paisley Town Hall and saying we need to work together, Reform and Labour, to remove the SNP".

Sarwar described this as "nonsense" during the debate, and afterwards said: "Let me be unequivocal: no stitch-ups, no deals, no backroom chats, no back-channel contact with Reform.

"I only want one deal, and that is with the people of Scotland."

The SNP said a "grubby deal" had been exposed and claimed Sarwar would "happily work with Reform if it gave him a whiff of power".

The leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats Alex Cole-Hamilton described talk of a deal between Labour and Reform as dirty tricks.

Cole-Hamilton ruled out any deal between his party and Reform, describing them as "part of the problem".

Earlier in the debate Offord sided with US President Donald Trump after he again urged the UK to "drill, baby, drill" and extract more oil and gas from the North Sea.

Referring to UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, the Scottish Reform leader said: "I would agree with Donald Trump on this – drill, Mili, drill is what I would say."

He added: "In terms of energy, we account for less than 1% of global emissions, right now it is more of a priority we have safe and affordable energy."

Swinney said he did not agree with Trump's comments, adding: "I think we have got enormous challenges about energy, but Scotland is an energy-rich country which is developing formidable renewable energy resources."

Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay attacked the SNP's switch in stance, adding it was "absolutely critical the United Kingdom harnesses the oil and gas at its disposal".

Findlay said there should be a "sensible energy mix" which "starts with drilling for the oil and gas we have in abundance in the North Sea".

But he also backed the use of nuclear power – something the SNP is strongly opposed to.

Sarwar also supports the use of nuclear power, and backed two oil and gas projects opposed by environmentalists that the UK Labour government is considering.

A previous Conservative government at Westminster approved the Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea and the Rosebank oil development in the North Atlantic.

"A commitment was made to respect the licences granted by the last government, we should stick to that commitment, for example for Rosebank and Jackdaw," said Sarwar.

However, Scottish Green co-leader Gillian Mackay said no more drilling should take place.

"It is very clear that any new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea is not compatible with the climate crisis and actually won't bring anyone's bills down," she said.

"What actually we need to see is a move to renewables."

The Scottish Liberal Democrat leader branded the US president a "gangster".

Cole-Hamilton said: "We need leadership that will stand up to him in the same way the Liberal prime minister in Canada, Mark Carney, did."

This was the moment the election got personal. Really very personal.

In theory this is a question of parliamentary arithmetic; the idea being that if the SNP is short of a majority after 7 May, opposition parties could unite to put Anas Sarwar in Bute House instead.

But in the immediacy it's a question of electoral tactics.

It is in the SNP's interests to talk up Reform, because John Swinney likes the idea of Nigel Farage as a bogeyman to pull his own supporters out to the polls.

He is also calculating that framing the election as "stop Reform" could corral the tactical votes of those who don't like the insurgent party.

Reform meanwhile are just as happy to shut Labour out of the debate, if it increases their chances of being the anti-SNP vote.

Labour though are desperate to make this a "stop the SNP" election where they are the main alternative, and are ramping up their attacks on Reform to try to paint them as an irrelevance in the race for Bute House.

In short, each party is hoping to set this up as a two-horse race where they get to choose who the other horse is.

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