The Offord Apologists
The American novelist Sinclair Lewis famously said, “When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” This is true of Britain too.
This week saw the release of something called Christian Fellowship for Reform, a bizarre hybrid of White Christian Nationalism and Reform’s rancid politics. A video featured Sarah Pochin and Ann Widdecombe. A reminder that Sarah Pochin famously recently said “It drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people, full of people that are basically anything other than white” and Widdecombe, sharp-eyed readers will recall, is the former Prisons Minister who insisted that women prisoners should be manacled to their hospital beds while giving birth.
Merry Christmas to you too.
Today we launched Christian Fellowship for Reform.
With Christmas fast approaching, Sarah Pochin and other guests attended the carol service in St Michael’s Church in Cornhill. ⛪️ pic.twitter.com/ZUOY0TERNT
— Reform UK (@reformparty_uk) December 11, 2025
Imagined Enemies
The same trick is being pulled by Tommy Robinson, who organised a Christmas carols event tonight in London. These moves are laced with Islamophobia and lean into the idea of ‘cultural erasure’ and other far-right tropes while playing on the whole ‘Christmas is Cancelled’ canard. The moves have prompted the Church of England to post this video:
In an article in the Independent on Friday, David Walker, the bishop of Manchester, wrote there was “something especially offensive about appropriating this great Christian festival of light triumphing over darkness as a prop in a dim culture war”.
The Christian gloss over Reform’s toxic politics is strategic, as is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’s conversion to Christianity while in prison. The effect is to conjure a picture of a Christian Nation (England), beleaguered and under siege by Islamic forces. Where once Merry Old England was under the heel of the tyrannical EU, they are now under attack from Un-Christian forces. Fascism always needs imagined enemies.
Reform this week won its first by-election in Scotland [David McLennan was elected as a councillor in Whitburn and Blackburn in West Lothian, taking the seat from Scottish Labour] and Malcolm Offord, its leader-in-waiting was treated to a Question Time appearance (which was widely slated). But whitewashing Reform’s politics as the defenders of the Christian Faith will not do the job of masking the agenda on its own.
Step forward Andy McIver who took to the pages of the Herald to explain how he’d been working for Offord ‘in a professional capacity’, McIver claims not to be a Tory but has worked in the past for David McLetchie, and Murdo Fraser who he ‘attempted to help create a new, electable Scottish party.’
Offord, according to McIver “…unapologetically believes in the basic philosophy of Scotland’s greatest export Smith; easy taxes and hard work, a smaller state and a bigger society, welfare for those who need it and not for those who want it.”
McIver writes: “For those of us who want good people in Holyrood, with enthusiasm, drive and ideas, Offord will be a welcome and vital addition. But Farage displeases me. I am not ready to throw around the r-word or the f-word at him (I prefer to reserve such terms for proven dictators and tyrants in order to retain a sense of perspective).”
Why so coy?
Offord is not some solo champion and can’t be disassociated from Farage’s politics. You can’t be a serious political commentator and not talk about the ‘r-word and the f-word’. As Reform’s real politics is airbrushed and sanitised by scribes like McIver, it’s worth remembering that in August this year we reported on Farage’s agenda [This is Not Normal – Bella Caledonia]:
“A man who is widely thought to be in the running for becoming the next Prime Minister of the UK has just set out a five-year plan, which would include tearing up human rights laws and sending people to countries where they could be at risk of imprisonment, torture or death. He confirmed women and children would be among those to be locked up on arrival, as he set out plans to build huge detention centres in military camps and charter five flights a day for deportations. About 600,000 asylum seekers could be deported in the first parliament of a Reform government, Farage suggested.”
He promised uniformed officers raiding Britain’s towns and cities, disappearing people off the street for rendition to countries they’ve never been to, with no recourse to legal protections, claiming that it’s what “normal countries do.”
This can’t be glossed over, nor can the way in which Offord bought his peerage and the dark hypocrisy of someone standing for ‘Reform UK’ from this corrupt place. McIver has nothing to say about any of this.
The British Media and Anti-Semitism
Offord and his media chums can’t gloss over Farage’s links to the American far-right, from which a lot of this Christian Nationalism stems, nor their links to the European far-right which is also being lost in the fascist twilight we’re in the midst of.
If the hypocrisy is off the scale, so too are the double standards about Farage’s anti-semitism. As Adam Bienkov writes [The Farage Apologists]:
“Over recent weeks commentators and publications which spent years accusing the Labour party of being “institutionally anti-semitic”, have suddenly discovered that the issue of anti-semitism within our politics is no longer of interest to them.
The Spectator, whose columnist Douglas Murray wrote in 2019 that “Labour’s anti-Semitism shame must never be forgiven” has suddenly become much more forgiving about the significantly worse allegations being made against the Reform leader.
“Responding to claims that Nigel Farage had sung Hitler Youth songs, told Jewish children they should go to the gas chamber, and submitted a young black boy to repeated racist bullying, the magazine dismissed them as “desperate smears” while calling Farage’s alleged victims “feeble and underhand” for “playing the informer” on him.
A similar attitude could be found at the Telegraph, which also spent years demanding action against anti-semitism in our politics.”
“The campaign against Farage shows that nothing is beneath the frightened Left”, wrote the paper’s Associate Editor, and Farage’s fellow GB News host, Camilla Tominey, last week.”
The truth is that anti-semitism from the Left is to be deplored and politicians hounded out of office, but anti-semitism from the Right is to be explained away and brushed aside.
The reality is that the complete failure of Starmer’s Labour government is opening the door to a Farage premiership, offering the most extreme politics Britain has seen in the modern era. None of this is inevitable, but whitewashing and apologism in the mainstream media will only hasten the ascent of fascism, and calling it what it is is essential.
The majority of media in UK are right wing therefore I expect large sections of UK media to support Reform at next election if Tories are still floundering.
The overwhelming majority of media in Scotland are hostile to independence, therefore if Reform start to look like they will win more votes than Labour or Tories then I fully expect most of the Scottish media to support them.
Lastly I sometimes wonder if the proponents of the great replacement theory are basing their arguments upon how European nations wiped out indigenous civilisations in different continents over the centuries?
Another excellent on point article Mike. Well done. Reform is a very significant danger to our politics and as you point out the right wing press are cheering them on without any thought of what a British version of Trump would be actually like in reality. Anything right of centre is seemingly catnip for the Torygraph etc and their billionaire owners. Horrifying and a crypto donation of 9 million quid (god knows where that actually came from, Russia?) means Reform are now permanently well funded and they don’t seem to have much concern for spending limit rules (per Farage’s own seat). A toxic combination allied with an army of fake fb accounts and bots.
Great piece again Mike. John and Joe (first comments below) are spot on sadly. I can’t believe just how right wing the mainstream media have become. I used to think that Boris as PM was absurd but the idea of Farage as PM is so beyond my comprehension that `i’m floundering slightly. The only antidote to this poison (including odious Offord) is Independence. ASAP!
How to get there? Well I could write a whole screed on that but ‘too long didn’t read’ might apply. All i’ll suggest is that every individual who is against fascism and for independence just needs to convince one, just one, other person and the majority for independence would then be huge. A vital first step.
How to persuade them? Well more pieces like yours help hugely, and what I’m doing is telling people that they will be significantly better off financially in an independent Scotland.
When they ask how? I refer them to Scotland the Brief for example, and the UK Government’s own stats which illustrate best. Most folks won’t check (mores the pity) but the greed seed is sown and I’m amazed that so many are swayed if they think they’ll be better off.
It’s coming yet. Let’s hope it comes in time!
Please keep up the good work.
The far right have always been present in the upper echelons of the Church of England. The Channel 4 documentary series ‘See No Evil’ provides a cautionary tale of the dark depths into which the Anglican brand of far right ‘Muscular Christianity’ can descend: https://www.channel4.com/programmes/see-no-evil
I worry that the real issues of reform don’t get addressed in all the heat that the ‘f’ and ‘r’ words generate. Nowhere do I see any real discussion in the impact of their likely policies. It’s almost as though they like the distraction. Skilled ‘rage farming’ gives them miles of press around the rage but no serious questions around what they would plan to do in government and the consequences for the poor and vulnerable.
Farage wants an health insurance scheme, has close links to the mango Mussolini currently trampling American democracy, Offord wants small government. We are all living the consequences of Thatcher’s small government with a privatised National Grid, water companies and electricity companies, a Market economy in health with an ideology of seeking ‘savings’ every year. The chronic underinvestment in public services will continue under reform. Indeed, it will quicken. There’s no real commentary on these issues but plenty of rage about other things.
Scottish Enlightenment philosopher Adam Smith argued at considerable/excruciating length in his Theory of Moral Sentiments that our morality essentially develops from sympathy arising from observing the sufferings of others, and it would be perverse of Andy McIver to omit this aspect of Smith’s philosophy, if he did.
I called Tommy Robinson a Christo-deviant faith-immigrant, but sadly the real history of Judeo-Christian values has been one of justifying the cruellest exercise of arbitrary power and the most violent actions. I mention this in the context of those cheery manger scenes, so far from the horror of intensive farming practices and the War on Nature waged by largely Christian countries today (read philosopher Peter Singer for more details). That China and Japan may have terrible animal welfare records is not an excuse, but it is significant that the UK government doesn’t have much that is sensible to say on the subject.
We may be seeing the (possibly superficial) commitment to the rule of law flickering out on both sides of the Atlantic. The UK was exposed as possibly the most corrupt country in Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic (VIP-lane and all), our Church-anointed hereditary rulers are conventionally silent on actual constitutional and territorial threats (you might have thought the King of Canada might publicly object to its annexation, but no, apparently Russia not the USA is somehow threatening to invade).
If Reform do form the next government, they may wreck whatever weak environmental regulations and enforcement we have left. The damage this will do will be irreversible.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002n2hr/panorama-the-truth-about-forever-chemicals?seriesId=unsliced&page=1
It might seem contradictory that a supposedly natalist party would be in favour of polluting the country with reprotoxic forever chemicals (Greenpeace called Reform’s manifesto a ‘contract with the polluters’), but I guess logic isn’t their strong suit.
Thanks Mike. The American right will use whatever tools it has to persuade us (originally the US citizen but now to the rest of the world) to tolerate or even love corporate serfdom; those tools such as race, religion, class, origin, language, culture, all will be bent and exaggerated and lied about to serve the bigger story. The master tool of course is money, hundred of thousands of millions of dollars, all cunningly expropriated from the very subjects they wish to rule. The King of England and Scotland himself is but a larger pebble on the shore of this ocean of power. As in any subjugated people, there will be traitors who will sell their soul, their fellow citizens, their sovereign realm for a few pieces of silver and the promise of power in their own land, whilst secretly having to acknowledge their own fealty to powers that give them their own. You name a few of them here.
A couple of postings ago I got some flack here from commenting on the hypocrisy of the excessive punishment meted out to Nathan Gill for his temerity in taking his few pieces of silver from Russia for promoting Russian interests in interviews and opinion. Well, I think what’s happening now in the UK is proof enough of my thesis, and if you think ten years for Gill was ever appropriate, then ten years at least is appropriate for every one of these corrupt players who if allowed to continue will bring down this nation more effectively than any amount of suspected Russian interference or Gill interviews, the US being by far the biggest threat to UK sovereignty and world peace.
Worth reading this piece by Jonathan Cook “Don’t worry, be happy. All those who feared a dystopian future got it wrong” https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/dont-worry-be-happy-all-those-who
Since I first read this yesterday, Jonathan had had to append a post-script explaining the purpose of his article; amazingly but perhaps not surprisingly, it seems confirmed that we now live in a beyond satire world.
Thanks for the recommendation. Unfortunately this Jonathan Cook appears to be followed by a large number of raging antisemites and conspiracy theorists- Sample reply to a recent post: “Bondi Beach attack was staged by Zionists” -even on the cerebral Substack.
On the other side, we now have mainstream Scottish politicians trying to unseat government ministers by repeating the phrase “grooming gangs” simply to exploit the emotional response of a section of the population who’ve been radicalised by their aunty’s Facebook posts.
I can only hope that governments wake up and start treating the social media giants as publishers with a responsibility not to encourage hatred and disinformation
Steve – I agree with your comments with regard to need to bring law on social media into line with publishers.
Re Jonathan Cooke – I have read a considerable amount of his articles and though he may be anti Zionist he is not antisemitic. Yes the comments section contains conspiracy theories and antisemitic comments. Unfortunately if you look at inline commends sections of any social media site and many newspapers you will conspiracy theorists and racists – hence my support for bringing law up to date.
Peter Oborne and Richard Saunders , both experienced, respected journalists are, like Jonathan Cooke, very critical of the pro Israeli reporting in media and government policy. They also explain how Israeli government propaganda is uncritically reported by mainstream media in UK. I find their reporting both informative and a valuable counterpoint to the self censorship large parts of media have imposed on themselves. I would strongly recommend Peter Oborne’s recent book ‘ Complicit’ which is forensic in examining the government and media’s response to October 7th pogrom and subsequent Genocide in Gaza.