It cannot be denied any longer – Reform is riddled with racism

After election campaigners for Nigel Farage were filmed voicing violent racist and homophobic slurs, the leader suggested such people end up in his party because ‘they haven’t got the BNP to go to anymore’. But when it comes to hate speech, Reform has got form, says Femi Oluwole

Nigel Farage said he was ‘dismayed’ by the ‘appalling sentiments’ made by Reform UK canvassers (Getty)

If you were shocked that an activist working for Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage has called Rishi Sunak a “f****** P***” , and argued that people crossing the English Channel in small boats should be used as “target practice” by the army, where exactly have you been?

The history of Reform UK – the populist right-wing party with roots in Ukip, and which started in 2019 as the Brexit Party, before changing its name after our exit from the EU – perfectly explains why people with such views end up there. Farage, who condemned these violent remarks and racist slurs, saying he is “dismayed” by them, today went on Loose Women and suggested the reason such people end up in his party is because “they haven't got the BNP to go to anymore”.

It seems to me that racist stereotyping is at the literal foundations of Reform UK. Catherine Blaiklock, who founded the party, once said Black people were inherently violent due to excess testosterone; she then had to leave it in 2019, after Islamophobic tweets were uncovered, though she later described them as “out of character” and admitted they were unacceptable. Their only MP to date, Lee Anderson, jumped ship from the Conservative Party after he accused Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, of being controlled by Islamists.