Will the row about racist language affect Reform’s election prospects?

Sean O’Grady assesses the damage after members of Nigel Farage’s campaign team were recorded using unacceptable language

Nigel Farage says he is ‘dismayed by the reported comments’, but his critics are sceptical (AFP via Getty)

Channel 4’s exposé of the racist and homophobic language used by some Reform UK activists working on Nigel Farage’s campaign in Clacton has once again raised questions about the party’s culture and attitudes.

There have been multiple cases of Reform UK candidates being discovered to have expressed problematic views on social media, albeit in some cases dating back many years. Farage himself has come under sustained attack for expressing his admiration for Vladimir Putin “as an operator”, and his accusation that the EU and Nato “poked the Russian bear” and provided Putin with a casus belli for his 2022 invasion.

The question is what these developments will mean for Reform and Farage’s electoral prospects...