Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said he is ‘hurt and angry’ about a racial slur used against him – as he said his daughters have to hear Reform canvasser ‘calling me an effing p***’
Sunak: Reform campaigner’s racial slur hurts and Farage has questions to answer
Rishi Sunak has said he is “hurt and angry” about a Reform UK canvasser using a racial slur against him.
The PM said that party leader Nigel Farage “has some questions to answer”. On a campaign visit to a school in Teesside, Mr Sunak told broadcasters: “My two daughters have to see and hear Reform people who campaign to Nigel Farage calling me an effing p***.
“It hurts and it makes me angry, and I think he has some questions to answer. 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.”
The comments emerged last night after Channel 4 published uncover footage of Mr Farage’s campaign in Clacton. The footage showed Reform UK activists saying people who arrive by small boat should be shot and using racist language about Mr Sunak.
Asked whether he was frustrated that some former Tory voters are leaning towards Reform UK when their activists are making racist and homophobic comments, Mr Sunak said: “When you see Reform candidates and campaigners seemingly using racist and misogynistic language and opinion, seemingly without challenge, I think it tells you something about the culture in the Reform party.
“Andrew Tate isn’t an important voice for men. He’s a vile misogynist. And our politics and country is better than that. As Prime Minister, but more importantly as a father of two young girls, it’s my duty to call out this corrosive and divisive behaviour.”
The undercover footage recorded by Channel 4 News showed Reform UK activist Andrew Parker saying the party should “kick Muslims out of mosques and turn them into Wetherspoons ”. He also said that army recruits should use asylum seekers crossing the Channel as “target practice”. And in the same conversation he used a sickening racist term to describe Mr Sunak.
Describing how he’d deal with people coming by small boats, Mr Parker told an investigator: “Get the young (Army) recruits there, yeah, with guns on the f****** beach, target practice. F****** just shoot them.” And the footage also shows him encouraging a paramedic to deny oxygen to patients if they are “any of that f****** lot”. He described Islam as a “cult”.
George Jones, who has been running events for Mr Farage’s campaign, told the undercover investigator that Clacton was chosen because it is “proper England”. He said: “Not like in London when you’re a foreigner in your own country, and if you say ‘hello’ to someone they look like they’re about to f****** knife you in the face.”
Keir Starmer said he was “shocked by what I heard in the report, clearly racist, and I think this is a test of leadership” for Mr Farage. “You have to ask the question why so many people who are supporting Reform seem to be exposed in this particular way,” the Labour leader added.
Mr Farage said he is “dismayed” by the comments, and said Mr Parker will no longer be working on his campaign in Clacton, Essex. “The appalling sentiments expressed by some in these exchanges bear no relation to my own views, those of the vast majority of our supporters or Reform UK policy,” Mr Farage said. “Some of the language used was reprehensible.”
But he has alleged that the investigation was a “set up” and that Mr Parker is an actor. Channel 4 has rejected this, with a spokeswoman for the broadcaster adding: “We strongly stand by our rigorous and duly impartial journalism which speaks for itself. We met Mr Parker for the first time at Reform UK party headquarters, where he was a Reform party canvasser.
“We did not pay the Reform UK canvasser or anyone else in this report. Mr Parker was not known to Channel 4 News and was filmed covertly via the undercover operation.”
