Reform UK has been rocked by a fresh crisis after councillors and election candidates for the party were caught on film making graphic threats of extreme violence and expressing racist and misogynistic views.
Three councillors have already stood down from the party, which said it was conducting an investigation over the first revelations from an ITV undercover investigation that aired on Wednesday.
Reform leader Nigel Farage has postponed a major announcement that was due to take place in Essex on Thursday morning as the party tries to contain the fallout expected to come from further revelations in the coming days. That will include revelations from undercover filming of senior Reform politicians and officials working at its UK headquarters.
Farage has made repeated pledges over the last two years to rid Reform of “extremists” and “bigots” and introduce vetting. The party says it carries out vetting checks on everyone who wants to stand for election.
However, the first clips from ITV’s year-long undercover investigation showed Alan Feeney, a Reform councillor and deputy mayor of Solihull, calling Asian homeowners “parasites,” and stating that “no more than 1% of [the] British population can be non-white”.
Feeney won seats on Birmingham city council and Solihull Metropolitan borough council and was then appointed deputy mayor of Solihull. He has announced that he has left Reform “for personal reasons”.
Other candidates were recorded making comments of extreme violence and sharing deeply misogynistic and racist views, including a Bromley councillor calling for King Charles to be killed and another councillor who made disturbing sexual and misogynistic comments about female colleagues.
Feeney was filmed with other candidates who went on to become councillors, Jamie Campbell and Chris Whelan, talking about where a local mosque might be built. After they make extreme racist comments in the discussion, Feeney says: “Oh god, we’re all going to end up in the papers”.
Chris Whelan announced he had resigned from Reform on 12 October “on personal and health grounds”. Campbell is still in post.
Dean Miller, a Reform councillor for Bromley, was filmed separately making a range of comments during campaigning for the Makerfield byelection, including when he discussed what he would do with illegal immigrants crossing the Channel.
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Reform has been attempting to pre-empt the impact from the ITV investigation, which will potentially be at its most damaging when footage from inside Reform’s London HQ airs.
The party used a statement issued on Wednesday night to accuse ITV and Hardcash Productions of “extreme methods of deception”.
“They have infiltrated our workplace including commissioning an undercover journalist to provide altered identification documents, a false address, and false credentials so that they could be given access to Reform’s headquarters, computer systems, and spy on its employees,” it said.
The party said that this came at a time when Farage and other members of Reform were “being targeted by individuals who wished them harm and caused a security issue which was documented during the course of the undercover investigation”.
“They have not included this in their report, despite being on notice since March this year. There is currently an ongoing police investigation relating to security breaches against Mr Farage, as is well known,” it added.
Reform said that not all individuals covertly recorded by ITV are members of Reform UK, adding: “Where members, activists and councillors have clearly behaved inappropriately, investigations have commenced. In some cases, there have been suspensions and due process must be followed.”
The latest crisis to hit the party comes at a time when it has been stalling in the polls and faces problems including the fallout from a different undercover investigation which filmed senior officials discussing a potential way to secure foreign donations to the party.
The outcome is also awaited of a parliamentary standards commissioner investigation into whether Farage should have declared a £5m gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.
Bridget Phillipson MP, chair of the Labour party, said: “The extreme racism and appalling behaviour exposed by this investigation is truly sickening. Nigel Farage can’t shrug these latest revelations off as being a few bad apples. Every Reform councillor, council candidate or party member found to have made such despicable comments must be thrown out of Reform UK immediately.”
Undercover: A Year In Reform, airs on 18 October at 10.20pm on ITV1, ITVX, STV & STV Player.
