The Reform UK MP Robert Jenrick sought to defend the party against fresh allegations that it hosts extremists by claiming that Nigel Farage had “probably done more than almost anybody to stand against racism and the far right”.
The remarks came after Farage was berated by a Reform official for “protecting” a mayoral candidate who was accused of making racist remarks against the former Labour deputy prime minister, David Lammy.
The exchange emerged in an undercover investigation by ITV Exposure, which has also shown councillors and election candidates for Reform making threats of extreme violence and expressing racist, Islamophobic and misogynistic views.
In the latest footage released by ITV, a senior Reform official is seen warning Farage that he was “protecting” a high-profile mayoral candidate accused of making racist comments about Lammy.
Sarah Pochin, one of two female MPs for Reform, is also seen complaining that other party officials “are so fucking chauvinistic” and that “they just exclude you if you are a woman”.
Defending Farage and the party from the latest revelations on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Jenrick, the party’s Treasury spokesperson and MP for Newark, said: “(Farage) is the most heavily scrutinised figure in British politics, and he’s someone who’s probably done more than almost anybody else to stand against racism and the far right, and to protect our politics from that over the course of my lifetime.
“And this documentary failed to besmirch his character, which presumably was his ultimate objective.”
Farage has made repeated promises 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”.
Further footage released on Thursday shows Farage himself discussing the case of Chris Parry, a retired rear admiral picked to contest the Hampshire and the Solent mayoral election for the party.
The party stood by Parry for months after it emerged that he had said the former foreign secretary should “go home to the Caribbean” last year, and suggested that at least eight other politicians from minority ethnic backgrounds did not have a primary loyalty towards the UK.
However, while Reform eventually suspended him in March after the Guardian revealed other remarks by Parry, clips from an ITV documentary show Farage pushing back against senior advisers who said the candidate had to be sacked. They included Ed Sumner, Reform’s head of communications, who had told another press officer in an earlier disucussion that Parry was “clearly a racist”.
In a conversation between Farage and Sumner, which was recorded by the undercover reporter, the Reform leader said that Parry “must apologise to Lammy” and was told that a text had been written for the candidate.
“He must do it and move on … Tell him that from me,” Farage said, to which Sumner said: “You’re protecting him.”
To laughter, Farage replied: “It’s showing a bit of … bit of sorrow. Look, ‘I’m sorry’ is probably a good thing to hear. Just take the fucking deal. Trouble is he’s a rear admiral. That’s the problem.”
On the Today programme, Jenrick defended Reform’s vetting policy. “In my experience, all political parties have bad apples. I mean, you can see that’s plain to see from the conduct of other political parties. In fact, Councillor Feeney, the one that you presented before I came online, was for a short time a Reform councillor, but for a much greater time a Conservative councillor.”
He added: “We actually have very strong vetting, and we invest a huge amount in it, and it’s improving all the time. I don’t know what the vetting is like in every other political party. I can say in the Conservative party, because it was my former party, there is absolutely no vetting whatsoever by the central party for local councillors.”
