Last year, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in a speech that he was proud to be Britain’s first prime minister of Asian descent, but “even more proud that it’s just not a problem.”
On Friday, Mr Sunak said he was “hurt” and “angry” after a man campaigning on behalf of Reform UK, an anti-immigration party, was shot. on video using a racial slur to describe him. The same man also called for the targeting of migrants.
The comments appeared in a Channel 4 News exposé in which an undercover researcher secretly filmed reform campaigners in Clacton, a coastal area northeast of London. The party’s leader, veteran political disruptor Nigel Farage, hopes to win his first parliamentary seat there.
The survey, which was broadcast on Thursday evening, raised uncomfortable questions about the reform, which has shaken the country’s general election campaign since Farage reversed his earlier decision not to stand for parliament.
In the weeks since, the insurgent party has risen in the polls, at one point threatening Mr. overtaking Sunak as the second most popular party, before recently falling back. But she has also been harshly criticized after some of her candidates made inflammatory statements.
Mr Farage initially said he was “appalled” by the comments aired in the Channel 4 News investigation, adding: “Some of the language used was reprehensible.”
But on Friday, after it emerged that the man at the centre of the furore, Andrew Parker, was a part-time actor, Farage claimed his party had been the victim of “a total set-up”, a charge strenuously denied by Channel 4 News.
The investigation also revealed homophobic comments from George Jones, an activist closely associated with Reform UK
Mr Jones, an aide who has also worked for two other parties previously led by Mr Farage, was heard describing a Pride emblem on a police car as a “degenerate flag”, adding that should Reform UK become a future government, “our police officers will be paramilitaries,” suggesting the party should “bring back the noose.”
The comments, broadcast on TV, sparked anger from lawmakers across the political spectrum. The strongest condemnation, however, came from Mr Parker, who described Islam as “the most disgusting cult there is”, suggested army recruits should carry out “targeted exercises” by shooting at migrants arriving on British shores and used a racist slur to describe the prime minister.
On Friday, Mr Sunak told broadcasters that “it hurts and angers me” that his two daughters have to see and hear “reformists who campaigned for Nigel Farage” using such abusive language against their father.
The prime minister himself repeated the slur while criticizing it, saying: “I do not repeat those words lightly. I do so deliberately because this is too important not to clearly state what it is.”
Mr Farage has questions to answer, Mr Sunak added, saying such corrosive and divisive behaviour “tells you something about the culture within the Reform Party.”
In a statement to Channel 4 News, Mr Parker said that “neither Nigel Farage personally nor the Reform Party are aware of my personal views on immigration”, adding that he “would like to apologise profusely to Nigel Farage and the Reform Party if my personal views have cast them in a negative light or brought them into disrepute, as that was not my intention.”
Channel 4 News said in a statement that it “has not paid the Reform UK canvasser or anyone else featured in this report. Mr. Parker was not known to Channel 4 News and was covertly filmed through the undercover operation.”
The broadcaster added: “We fully stand behind our rigorous and completely impartial journalism, which speaks for itself.”
The TV expose is the second major setback for Mr Farage, who stunned the Conservative Party this month when he unexpectedly announced he would take over as leader of Reform and stand in the general election.
While Reform is unlikely to win many seats in a British electoral system that favours the two largest parties, it could steal enough votes from the Tories to ruin their chances in a significant number of seats, adding to their problems in an election that polls predict they will lose.
Until recently, the Conservatives have been reluctant to directly criticise Mr Farage and his party, partly because they hoped to win over voters sympathetic to the reforms.
But even before the latest outrage, the reforms’ rise in the polls appeared to have been somewhat reversed after Mr Farage said in a TV interview that the West had provoked Russian President Vladimir V Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. That is not a popular view in Britain, where support for the Ukrainian government remains high and there is little affection for Mr Putin.
Some reform election candidates had already come under scrutiny for past comments, with one saying Britain should have stayed neutral in the fight against the Nazisand used another anti-Semitic tropes and claimed that Jewish groups were “activating the mass importation of Muslims into England.”
The party has attributed some of its problems to growing pains and has threatened to take legal action against a private company It pays to screen candidates.
