Anas Sarwar calls Malcolm Offord ‘a liar’ over claims of a deal to work against the SNP

Anas Sarwar has called Malcolm Offord “a liar” following claims made by Reform UK’s Scotland leader during a leaders’ debate last night.

Offord said during the Channel 4 leaders’ debate ahead of the Scottish Parliament election next month that, despite Sarwar calling him “a racist” on national television three separate times, the Scottish Labour leader had told him they should work together against the SNP.

The Reform leader claimed during the debate that Sarwar’s public remarks did not square with him “bouncing up to me” at an event in Paisley in December and “saying we need to work together, Reform and Labour, to remove the SNP”.

Sarwar dismissed the claims as nonsense during the debate and later described them as “a desperate lie from a desperate man”.  

Speaking to the media today, he has reinforced his rejection of the claims made by Offord. He said: “Malcolm Offord is a liar, and the night he is referencing is the same night I was on national television calling him a pathetic, odious little man, and saying that the people of Scotland will reject him.”

Asked what he said in the green room during the event in December, Sarwar said the claims “are utter nonsense and desperation” from Offord.  

He said: “These are the people who have run racist ads against me, they’ve said multiple times they might run those racist ads again, one of their candidates says that all Muslims, even if they are born here, should be deported – that would include my children. The idea that these are a group of people that I want any association with, or we would do any deal with, is ridiculous.”

Sarwar was also critical of the reaction of John Swinney to the claims, and said: “For the SNP to jump on it, they are now effectively saying 'don’t trust a word this man [Offord] says, unless he’s saying something about me’.”  

He added: “Yesterday was an opportunity and a moment where Scotland could have come together to say, ‘we will reject the poison of Reform’, but sadly John Swinney chose to play what he thought was politics working in his favour.”