Farage defends Scottish Reform leader Offord over homophobic joke

Nigel Farage has defended Reform UK's Scottish leader after it emerged Malcolm Offord told a homophobic joke at a rugby club dinner in 2018 for which he later apologised. The Reform UK leader said: "If we're going to drum people out of public life for telling a joke at a boozy rugby club dinner that's amongst friends, we'll finish up with the dullest group of individuals, looking a bit like, sounding a bit like Keir Starmer." Farage said that "when you take something as it is, yeah of course, it looks awful". But he added that there was context and he understood that, even on the evening in question, Offord had "probably regretted doing it". Speaking at the launch of Reform UK's local English election campaign in Sunderland, Farage added: "This sort of po-faced, purism attitude to anything anyone's ever said when they're with a group of mates, frankly, is ridiculous". Offord, who apologised soon after making the remark, denied he was homophobic. The joke incident came back into public view this week following a story published by the Daily Record. Graham Simpson, who was elected a Scottish Conservative MSP in the last Holyrood parliament but defected to Reform UK last year, backed