Reform UK: How Scotland's commentariat is coming down with bad case of Offord Derangement Syndrome

Sadly, one only has to look at social media to find Long-BDS residing in the minds of people who think everything and anything they do not like about the world can be traced back to the British public voting for Brexit. Worse, BDS can mutate, and has appeared as new variants such as “Boris Derangement Syndrome” and “Farage Derangement Syndrome”. These display the same symptoms of foaming at the mouth and talking utter gibberish that even AI cannot make sense of.

The syndrome infests the victim’s brain with an unwillingness to see two sides of an argument or accept there is evidence that on occasion Brexit, Boris or Farage might have been good for us. Not even if it was as an unintended consequence (sadly I have no space here for extensive lists).

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Thankfully time should be the greatest healer, but I write about the matter now because I believe there’s a possibility of a new strain becoming prevalent, with its origins in Scotland. It should be known as “Offord Derangement Syndrome” and I have witnessed it myself privately among politicians who can talk of little else than Offord as we approach the Holyrood elections.

On Thursday this week, Reform UK Scotland launches its manifesto and announces it candidates, with a speech of encouragement from UK leader Nigel Farage, co-hosting the event with the party's Scottish leader Malcolm Offord.

I am beginning to detect a rather snarky if not wilful media focus on Offord the wealthy man rather than Offord the Scot who has sacrificed his previous lucrative pursuits to enter the Scottish Parliament.

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Offord Derangement Syndrome – known as ODS and pronounced “O-di-ous” to reflect the harm it can bring to its victims – is taking hold.

When I served two terms in the Scottish Parliament, I got along fine with many political journos, maybe, in part, because I was a maverick who swam against Holyrood’s collectivist tide and was good for a quote that would give their reports some contrast.

Yet I do detect in recent articles about Offord an inability to comprehend why anyone, like so many Scots before him who made their pile in London, would then want to come back and, even more inexplicably, give up so much to join, of all places, the elite corridors of Holyrood.

Offord’s purchase of a Loch Lomondside property has been used to emphasise his wealth, a form of ‘othering’ that later became the basis for his opponents to suggest it was bought so he could stand against Labour deputy leader, Jackie Baillie. It was all nonsense on stilts, but it built the negative trope and deflected from Offord’s policies of reversing Scotland’s economic and public sector decline.

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It is not difficult in listening to the man when interviewed or reading up on his background to find an immense pride in his Scottish heritage. Rather than bury his origins, he used his background to build useful connections on his journey in the City of London. It should be no surprise he would want to make Scotland a success story by first establishing a business in Scotland’s financial quarter and then wanting to liberate us all from the regulations and taxes that hold Scotland back.

Yes, he is a wealthy self-made man, but with MSPs such as Alexander Burnett and Edward Mountain currently occupying Holyrood’s swivel chairs he is unlikely to be the wealthiest to enter Holyrood, nor should it matter if he was. He is a positive example of meritocracy rather than aristocracy and yet it is clear the Labour party want to still talk of him as Lord Offord despite him resigning its trappings, prestige and attendance allowance.

Those with ODS are apt to ignore the many Scottish Labour peers that – unlike Offord – continue to sit on Westminster’s red benches; names such as Lords Mike Watson and Des Browne or Baronesses Margaret Curran and Helen Liddell.

It’s no surprise then to find some members of the commentariat focusing on the fact that Offord enjoys yachting. Frankly, I found the revelation that he cannot resist a Scotch pie most days as far more relatable to his humbler origins.

That is, of course, the point. ODS and all these syndromes unwittingly prevent consideration of any normalising positives – such as Offord’s liking of mutton pies that suggest he has more in common with ordinary Scots than his detractors would like us to know.

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Then there’s those who argue Offord was using racist tropes about migrants and crime when the evidence, as discovered by Linda Holt writing in The Reformer, showed he did indeed have a legitimate point. Evidence from Oxford University’s Migration Observatory found foreign nationals were over-represented among people cautioned or convicted for some crimes, including sexual offences, in 2024, although it also said that “if we control for age and sex, non-citizens are under-represented in the prison population”.

For Offord, caring about Scotland was taken in with his mother’s milk, his wealth doesn’t matter. The issue is, will Offord’s policies make Scotland successful and attract people that have left to return to build their futures here? If considering that requires lying down in a cool dark room to overcome ODS, then the Scottish commentariat needs to try it.

Brian Monteith is a former member of the Scottish and European parliaments and editor of ThinkScotland.org