Kemi Badenoch dismissed Reform UK as a ‘dictatorship’ after Nigel Farage installed a former Tory minister as his Scottish leader.
The Conservative leader attacked the Reform leader for appointing former Tory peer Lord Malcolm Offord yesterday without giving his party’s members a say.
She dismissed the prospect of Lord Offord being an electoral asset, saying he ‘has never delivered a leaflet in his life’.
Speaking to the Scottish Daily Mail during a visit to Edinburgh as Lord Offord was being unveiled by Mr Farage at a Reform press conference in Fife, Mrs Badenoch said: ‘That’s not a political party, it’s a one man band. It’s one guy who is running things and telling people what to do.
‘Good luck to all those people who are going there – it’s a dictatorship rather than a democracy. We are a democratic party. I can’t just do whatever I like, we have a constitution, a party board.
Kemi Badenoch talks to the Scottish Mail’s Political Editor Michael Blackley in Edinburgh
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage unveils Malcolm Offord as his party’s Scottish leader
Farage said time was running out if any would-be defectors wanted to join Reform UK for the Holyrood elections
‘Yes I’m the leader, I set the direction, I set the policy, but there are checks and balances and that is what is normal.’
It came as Mr Farage appealed directly to would-be defectors at Holyrood, saying they have just a ‘few days’ if they want to stand for his party in May’s election.
He said Labour and Conservative MSPs who ‘want to do better with us’ had ‘better get in touch’. He was speaking after confirming millionaire financier Lord Offord, who defected from the Tories last month, as his handpicked choice to be Reform’s leader in Scotland.
Lord Offord, who is now in the process of resigning from the House of Lords following his defection, served as a junior minister under Mrs Badenoch when she served as business secretary.
Asked if he was a good politician, she said: ‘No, he’s never delivered a leaflet in his life.’ She also said: ‘I worked with him, he was a good junior minister, nothing exceptional but very ambitious.’
Lord Offord has said he defected to Reform because he felt the Tories have no ambition for Scotland and because he didn’t think Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay believed he could become First Minister.