The UK Reform Party is facing accusations of its activists making racist, homophobic and offensive slurs particularly against British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Euractiv reported.
In Clacton-on-Sea, one of the campaigners used a racist slur against Indian-origin British Rishi Sunak, a practising Hindu who is the country’s first coloured prime minister. Activists also made homophobic and offensive comments. One supporter described Islam as “the most disgusting cult” and called for kicking Muslims out of mosques and turning places of worship into pubs. Rishi Sunak on Friday condemned the use of racist slurs. He stated:
My two daughters have to see and hear Reform people who campaign for Nigel Farage calling me an effing Paki. It hurts and it makes me angry, and I think he has some questions to answer. And I don’t repeat those words lightly. I do so deliberately, because this is too important not to call out clearly for what it is.
UK Reform Party leader Nigel Farage hopes to be elected as an MP next Thursday. As for the comments, he said he thought the allegations were a “complete and total set-up.” He suggested that campaigner Andrew Parker presumably received a reward for appearing in the video. Despite, Parker separately said he was campaigning for reform in a personal capacity. Nevertheless, Channel 4, which carried out the filming of the secret video, has denied Farage’s claims of fabrication. In the video, he encourages recruits to stage an “archery shoot”, shooting illegal migrants trying to cross the Channel from northern France. According to Reform UK, the campaigners fired.
The allegations are the latest in the history of Reform UK. In recent weeks, a number of Reform UK candidates faced expulsion or suspension over accusations of offensive comments. Since the start of the year, the Reform UK party has had to withdraw 166 candidates, many of whom have made racist or offensive comments.
Farage, who as a European MP campaigned for Britain’s exit from the EU and now seeks an immigration freeze, drew criticism earlier in the campaign for saying Sunak, educated at one of Britain’s top public schools and studied at Oxford University, did not “understand our culture.”
