“All you really are is a poisonous, odious man hiding behind the badge of Reform looking to divide our communities”
The Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar tore into former life peer Malcolm Offord on Question Time last night.
Offord defected to Reform last week and gave up his peerage so he can campaign for a seat in Holyrood, saying that he aims to become First Minister of Scotland by 2031.
Question Time presenter Fiona Bruce asked Offord if Nigel Farage was “right” to claim that the fact that nearly one in three Glasgow schoolchildren speak English as a second language amounts to “the cultural smashing of Glasgow”.
The former Tory peer said: “Well I wouldn’t use that language”. Bruce asked “What’s wrong with that language?”.
Offord did not answer the question, and instead went on to say that the issue of immigration “is coming at us fast”.
He said that while one million people came to the UK in the whole of the 20th century, “so far in the first 25 years of this century seven million have come to the UK, that’s a lot of people”.
Offord also claimed that “we’ve got a lot of people coming in from places we don’t know so well, cultures that are not so aligned.”
Sarwar interjected: “Why are you presuming they’re new migrants, why are you presuming they don’t speak English, and why are you using, Reform using, Glasgow children to spread your bile and poison into our communities.
“It’s utterly shameful.”
Sarwar then said: “You might not agree with the language, Lord Offord, but you need to own it because that’s what you’re part of now.”
Referring to attack ads that Reform put out during the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election campaign in May, Sarwar said: “You’re part of a political party that deliberately spends tens of thousands of pounds questioning my loyalty to Scotland and lots of other people’s loyalty to Scotland.”
The Reform advert, which Scottish Labour called “blatantly racist”, said “Anas Sarwar has said he will prioritise the Pakistani community.”
Sarwar added: “All you really are is a poisonous, odious man hiding behind the badge of Reform looking to divide our communities rather than change our communities.”
To applause from the audience, he added: “Let’s not forget, Lord Offord, that when I was here serving the community of Paisley as a local NHS dentist, you were an advisor to Iain Duncan Smith, you were the man who served in Boris Johnson’s government and Liz Truss’ government.
“So don’t you dare try to be the great champion of working class communities in Scotland. People have seen your like before and rejected them, and I’ve got no doubt they’ll reject them again.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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