Nigel Farage has vowed to launch legal action over a government decision to delay some elections, as he held a rally unveiling the latest defector from the Conservatives to Reform UK.

The government this week announced that elections in four new mayoralties, which were part of its devolution drive to give local authorities more powers, would be postponed by two more years.

It means that elections that had been planned for May in Essex, Hampshire and the Solent, Sussex and Brighton, and Norfolk and Suffolk will now not take place until 2028.

Speaking after a rally in which he pledged to ‘ignore’ his critics and unveiled Reform’s first member of the House of Lords, Farage said his party would bring a legal challenge over the move.

He told The Telegraph: ‘We are actively pursuing a judicial review action against the Government over yet another attempt to delay elections where they fear Reform will win.

‘Labour‘s plans to cancel even more votes this year than last year must be challenged.’

The government said it had taken the decision to delay the elections due to local authorities needing ‘more time’ to merge into unitary authorities – but opposition parties accused the Prime Minister of a ‘scandalous attempt to subvert democracy’.

Farage’s comments came as Lord Malcolm Offord, the until-now Treasurer of the Conservative Party in Scotland, was announced as the latest politician to join the party during a rally in Falkirk on Saturday.

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Lord Malcolm Offord, the until-now Treasurer of the Conservative Party in Scotland, was announced by Nigel Farage as the latest politician to join the party during a rally in Falkirk on Saturday

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In a wide-ranging speech the Reform UK leader pledged to ‘ignore’ his critics, in a week where he has faced new claims about alleged anti-Semitic and racist comments he made as a teenager at Dulwich College in the 1970s and 80s

The Scottish financier previously served as a Scotland Office minister during the last Conservative government, and was a frontbench speaker in the House of Lords for the party at the time of his defection.

Mr Farage said he was ‘delighted’ to welcome Lord Offord to Reform, describing his defection as ‘a brave and historic act’.

He added: ‘He will take Reform UK Scotland to a new level.’

In a wide-ranging speech the Reform UK leader pledged to ‘ignore’ his critics, in a week where he has faced new claims about alleged anti-Semitic and racist comments he made as a teenager at Dulwich College in the 1970s and 80s.

During a speech to some 750 gathered Reform supporters, Farage said: ‘I could do what all the others do I could spend the next ten minutes slagging off the other parties.

‘I could tell you that the SNP care more about Gaza than Glasgow. I could tell you that the Conservative party have lost the will to fight. I could tell you that Labour are in freefall and deservedly so.

‘But I don’t need to do that. Do you know why? Because the people of Scotland know it already.’

He added: ‘I’m not here to play a political game of Punch and Judy with the others.

‘We’re going to ignore them, to do our own thing, we’re going to go out and sell to the Scottish people a manifesto based on hope, based on making people’s lives better.

‘We are the positive party of change and of hope.’

Farage was speaking after more allegations emerged this week concerning comments he is said to have made during his schooldays to Jewish students and those from ethnic minority backgrounds.

The Reform leader has denied he ever made racist remarks in a ‘malicious or nasty way’, or that he ‘directly’ racially abused anyone.

He has cited letters from other schoolmates in his defence, including from a Jewish boy he shared classes with, who said: ‘While there was plenty of macho tongue-in-cheek schoolboy banter, it was humour, and yes, sometimes it was offensive… but never with malice.’

As well as dismissing his critics in Falkirk today, Farage also complained other politicans ‘don’t believe in God’ and ‘have no concept of the De Dieu Christian roots upon which the entirety of our civilisation has been built’.

Farage then introduced the ‘very distinguished’ Lord Offord, who confirmed he would stand at the Scottish Parliament elections in May.

He said he would give up his place in the House of Lords as he prepares to campaign for a seat at Holyrood.

Lord Offord said he wanted to restore Scotland to a ‘prosperous, happy, healthy country’ and criticised the Conservatives for having ‘given up on Scotland’.

‘Scotland needs Reform and Reform is coming to Scotland,’ he told the rally.

‘Today I can announce that I am resigning from the Conservative Party. Today I am joining Reform UK and today I announce my intention to stand for Reform in the Holyrood election in May next year.

‘And that means that from today, for the next five months, day and night, I shall be campaigning with all of you tirelessly for two objectives.

‘The first objective is to remove this rotten SNP government after 18 years, and the second is to present a positive vision for Scotland inside the UK, to restore Scotland to being a prosperous, proud, healthy and happy country.’

The Greenock-born businessman was made a life peer in 2021 by then prime minister Boris Johnson and served as a minister of exports from 2023 until the general election in June 2024. He had previously donated nearly £150,000 to the party.

Following his peerage, he was made Baron Offord of Garvel.

He becomes Reform’s latest high-profile defection in Scotland. The party previously announced the defection of Scottish Tory MSP Graham Simpson, who gave a speech at the Falkirk rally, as well as a host of councillors around the country.

Discussing his experiences with the Scottish Tories, the former minister said: ‘What I found, quite candidly, is a party which is regional not national, parochial not political, timid not ambitious; a party without a vision of how to govern Scotland with a right-of-centre agenda.’

He previously stood for Holyrood in 2021 in the Lothian region but finished fifth.