(London) The British anti-immigration party Reform UK has withdrawn its support from three candidates reported to have made racist remarks, Nigel Farage’s political party told the media on Saturday, a few days before the elections.
With nominations already closed ahead of next Thursday’s poll, all three candidates will still appear as Reform UK candidates on the ballot papers.
According to the BBC, Edward Oakenfull, a candidate in central England, posted comments about the IQ of people from sub-Saharan Africa last year on social media. He claimed that these comments had been taken out of context.
Robert Lomas had said, according to the Times, that black people needed to “get off their lazy asses” and stop behaving “like savages.” The party cited “partial quotes taken out of context.”
Leslie Lilley was criticised for calling migrants crossing the Channel illegally “scum” on social media.
All three had been publicly disavowed by Nigel Farage, who when confronted on Friday evening on the BBC with the remarks against them, declared that he wanted “nothing to do with them”. He defended himself by asserting in particular that there are “people who say bad things in all parties”.
According to the anti-racism association Hope Not Hate, in view of the legislative elections, Reform UK had already had to give up 166 candidates since the start of the year, many of them having made racist or offensive remarks.
Nigel Farage, who declared his candidacy at the beginning of June, admitted that his party had not had time to “carry out a complete verification” of its candidates.
Accusations of “election interference”
This week, he announced that he had removed activists who made racist or homophobic remarks from his campaign in Clacton, in the south-east of England. One called Rishi Sunak a “fucking Paki”.
The Prime Minister, who condemned his comments and said he was “hurt” and “angry”, received the support of his Labor opponent Keir Starmer, who said on Saturday he shared his “disgust”.
Nigel Farage cried “trap” on Friday, questioning the honesty of Channel 4’s report, produced thanks to an infiltration, in which the comments of activists recorded without their knowledge were broadcast.
Reform UK said it had filed a report against the channel, which on Friday defended the integrity of its reporting, with the Electoral Commission.
“The show […] is clearly designed to harm Reform UK at election time,” accused party secretary Adam Richardson, speaking in his letter to the commission of “electoral interference”.
Nigel Farage also claimed on X that he was refusing to appear on the BBC’s Sunday political show without an apology from the public broadcaster, which he accused of behaving like a “political actor”. Nigel Farage called the audience who questioned him on a BBC show on Friday night “rigged”.
Accusations refuted by the BBC, a spokesperson for which pointed out to AFP that the show’s audience included roughly the same proportion of Reform UK supporters as the Greens, a leader of whom was also invited.
In addition, “other parties were also represented”, added the spokesperson, and the audience included “a number of people with varied political opinions, who had not yet made their choice” for the vote.