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Offord defends Reform UK's stance on Scottish independence, after Tories claim they're not pro-union enough

At the Reform UK press conference in Aberdeen my colleague Libby Brooks asked about Reform’s position on Scottish independence, and whether it would be sustainable if the May elections lead to parties in favour of breaking up the UK in power in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast.

Malcolm Offord, the Reform UK leader in Scotland, replied:

In Scotland we are saying that we’re the party of enough talk of referendum. We don’t want to talk about it, people have get no interest in it, there’s no appetite for it, and therefore can we just not talk about it and get on with making Scotland the most successful part of the UK.

Offord is vulnerable on this because in the past he has implied he is not 100% opposed to a second independence referendum. At their campaign launch yesterday, the Scottish Conseratives used this as an attack line, claiming they were the only party that would fully protect the union.

Asked how many Reform candidates have in the past backed independence, Offord said there were three, out of 73, “who have had that tendency in the past”.

Malcolm Offord (left) and Richard Tice at their press conference. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

This is from Paul Hutcheon from the Daily Record referring to what Malcolm Offord said about the Record’s story about his yachting trip. (See 1.14pm.)

Malcolm Offord responds to our story on him missing campaigning to compete in a yachting race:

“Heaven forbid a man has a hobby, right, and takes a day off at Easter.”

Records state he was skipper on all three days of the competition.

Starmer joins other European leaders and Japan in calling for 'substantive negotiated settlement'

Keir Starmer has released a joint statement on the Middle East also backed by the leaders of France, Italy, Germany, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Japan, and the EU.

They say:

The goal must now be to negotiate a swift and lasting end to the war within the coming days. This can only be achieved through diplomatic means.

We strongly encourage quick progress towards a substantive negotiated settlement.

This will be crucial to protect the civilian population of Iran and ensure security in the region. It can avert a severe global energy crisis.

We support these diplomatic efforts. To this end, we are in close contact with the United States and other partners.

We call upon all sides to implement the ceasefire, including in Lebanon.

Our governments will contribute to ensuring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.

Offord rejects claims Reform UK did not vet Scottish candidates properly, suggesting tweets from 10 years ago don't matter

Q: Do you think you should have vetted your candidates more carefully, given how many have had to stand down? And was it a mistake to choose some candidates who in the past have backed independence.

Offord says he believes in free speech.

He says some of his candidates have said things he would not have said personally. But he says the candidate are “real people who are on their journey to public life”.

He says, as long as people support the Reform project, he is not here judge people by their previous opinions. He goes on:

It’s a slippery slope going down into everybody’s Twitter account over the last ten years. And I took a decision – we’re not going to do that.

(This rather contradicts what Nigel Farage has said in the past about the party conducting a very thorough vetting exercise ahead of these elections.)

Tice says there are people who may have backed Scottish independence in the past, just as they are people who opposed Brexit who now think it is a good idea “as long as you do the job properly”.

(There are some people who opposed Brexit but are now in favour. But there are far more people who have changed their mind on Brexit in the opposite direction.)

Q: Did Nigel Farage throw you under the bus by blaming you for the appointment of Simon Dudley, the housing spokesperson who had to be sacked for his comment about the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

Tice claims the reporter got it wrong. He claims that he was the person who decided to sack Dudley, and he then told Farage about it. They are incredibly close, he says.

(This is what Farage said too. But it was Farage who actually announced the sacking. And earlier in the day Tice had reposted a tweet from Dudley saying he was sorry about how he expressed himself. But Dudley did not say in that tweet he had been sacked, and Tice did not announce that either on social media.)

Tice defends Offord's leadership of Reform UK in Scotland, while admitting there have been 'bumps' in campaign

Q: [To Offord] It has been reported that you missed campaigning to take part in a yachting race in the English channel over the weekend. Are you a part-time leader?

Offord says a man is allowed a hobby.

Q: [To Tice] Given the chaos with Reform’s campaign in Scotland, do you regret making Offord leader?

Tice says Offord is doing an “incredible”.

But he seems to acknowledge there have been problems. He says:

The job of the press is to scrutinise us. And, of course, there are potholes in the road. Some call them bumps; potholes in council campaigns [are] a key thing. And we just, we know we drive through the polls and we will fill them in.

Tice says oil and gas has worked for the UK. There is a saying, “If if ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

He says claims that renewables are cheaper are contradicted by the price being paid for renewables contract.

Q: There is a poll out today suggesting you won’t win any constituency seats. Are you worried by that?

Offord says polls have shown Reform UK in second place.

He says he is not making predictions. But he is aiming to win constituencies (as well as just getting seats through the regional list part of the electoral system).

Tice and Offord are now taking questions.

Q: [From the BBC’s Ben Philip] How quickly would these policies bring down prices?

Tice says the owners of the Jackdaw and Rosebank fields say they could be increasing supply within 12 months.

But he says he would like to get supply (of oil and gas) back to where it was 15 years ago.

As a condition of granting a licence, the government could insist on oil or gas being sold domestically.

Tice says in the US the domestic gas price has not been affected by the Iran war. The UK should learn from that, he says.

Tice claims other parties are starting to copy Reform UK on energy policy. He claims that is a form of flattery.

Tice says his final proposal would be regulatory reform.

We all want smart and safe regulations across all of our industries, and oil and gas is absolutely critical. We understand that.

What businesses tell me is they don’t want the daft, the dither and the delay at every level – unproductive regulation that just adds costs and achieves the square root of zero.

Tice says Reform UK would also get rid of the windfall tax on energy companies. That is the second of the four points in his plan.

Third, he says the party would get rid of what he calls “net stupid zero”, which he says would include the emissions trading scheme introduced by the Tories.

And if Labour takes the UK into the EU version, Reform UK would come out of it, he says.