Deacon Blue responds to Reform UK’s reference to ‘Dignity’: it “goes against everything we believe in.”

Deacon Blue has responded to Reform UK politician Malcom Offord’s reference to their song ‘Dignity’ in his Monday speech.

“Once a song is released into the world it can be sung, listened to and loved or hated by anyone; that is just the nature of releasing a song,” said Deacon Blue to The Guardian. “However, it appals us to see the lyrics of any of our songs being used to bolster a campaign and ideology which is completely at odds with what the song, and we as a band, believe”.

Dignity is a song about a council member who picks up trash in the street and saves money to someday buy a dingy called Dignity. Offord said he likes the song “for the message of working hard and saving up to make your dreams come true”.

Offord himself owns multiple racing yachts. “If there is a distinction between the haves and have yachts, Lord Offord is in the latter category,” said one Member of the Scottish Parliament.

“It has been deeply depressing to see the poisonous rhetoric of Reform take hold in Scotland,” said the band. “To see the demonising of desperate people with their anti-immigration policies, the talk of Scotland as a place for ‘our’ people and not strangers, goes against everything we believe in. Perhaps Malcolm Offord has overlooked another song from our first album. ‘Loaded’ is sung at our gigs by the audience, too: ‘It’s just you laugh, ‘cause you’re loaded. And things are different from there’.”

In 2024, the band headlined the Glasgow Gig for Gaza, a Palestinian aid fundraiser. Frontman Ricky Ross was also a vocal supporter of Scottish independence in the 2014 referendum.

“It goes without saying we hope Malcolm Offord and his party are roundly defeated by people all over the UK,” said the band.