Last year, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in a speech that he was proud to be the first British prime minister of Asian descent, but “even prouder that it’s no big deal.”
On Friday, Sunak said he was “hurt” and “angry” after a man campaigning on behalf of Reform UK, an anti-immigration party, was caught on video using a racist slur to describe him. The same man also called for immigrants to be targeted.
The comments appeared in a Channel 4 News report in which an undercover investigator secretly filmed Reform Party activists in Clacton, a seaside area northeast of London. The party’s leader, veteran political disruptor Nigel Farage, is hoping to win his first parliamentary seat there.
The inquiry, broadcast on Thursday night, raised uncomfortable questions about the reform, which has rocked the country’s general election campaign since Farage reversed an earlier decision not to stand for parliament.
In the weeks since, the insurgent party has surged in the polls, at one point threatening to overtake Sunak’s Conservatives as the second most popular party, but has recently retreated. But it has also come under heavy criticism after several of its candidates were found to have made inflammatory statements.
Farage initially said he was “appalled” by the comments broadcast in the Channel 4 News investigation, adding: “Some of the language used was reprehensible.”
But on Friday, after it emerged that the man at the center of the furor, Andrew Parker, was a part-time actor, Farage claimed his party had been the victim of “a total set-up”, an allegation Channel 4 News rejected firmly.
The investigation also recorded homophobic comments made by George Jones, an activist closely linked to Reform UK.
Mr Jones, an aide who also worked for two other parties formerly led by Mr Farage, was heard describing a Pride emblem on a police car as a “degenerate flag”, adding that if Reform UK form a future government, “our police officers will be paramilitaries,” and suggesting that the party should “give back the noose.”
The comments broadcast in the televised exposé drew ire from lawmakers across the political spectrum. The strongest condemnation, however, went to Parker, who described Islam as “the most disgusting sect”, suggested army recruits should carry out “target practice” by shooting migrants arriving on British shores and used a racial slur to describe the prime minister.
On Friday, Sunak told the media that it “hurts and angers me” that his two daughters “have to see and hear reformist people who campaigned for Nigel Farage” using such offensive language directed at their father.
The prime minister repeated the insult while criticizing him, saying: “I do not repeat those words lightly. I do it deliberately because this is too important not to say clearly what it is.”
Farage has questions to answer, Sunak added, saying such corrosive and divisive behaviour “says something about the culture within the reform party”.
In a statement to Channel 4 News, Mr Parker said that “neither Nigel Farage personally nor the Reform Party are aware of my personal views on immigration”, adding that he would like to “apologise profusely to Nigel Farage and the Reform Party if my personal views have negatively affected and brought them into disrepute, as that was not my intention”.
Channel 4 News said in a statement that it “did not pay the Reform UK campaigner or anyone else involved in this reporting. “Mr Parker was not known to Channel 4 News and was covertly filmed through the sting operation.”
The broadcaster added: “We firmly defend our rigorous and properly impartial journalism, which speaks for itself.”
The television revelation is the second significant setback for Farage, who shocked the Conservative Party when he unexpectedly announced this month that he would take over the leadership of Reform and stand in the general election.
While Reform is unlikely to win many seats under a British electoral system that favours the two largest parties, it could steal enough votes from the Conservatives to wreck their chances of winning a significant number of seats, compounding their problems in an election that polls predict will be difficult to lose.
Until recently, the Conservatives had been reluctant to directly criticize Farage and his party, in part because they hoped to court some voters who sympathize with reformism.
But even before the latest protests, Reform’s lead in the polls appeared to have receded somewhat after Farage said in a television interview that the West had provoked Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. That is not a popular stance in Britain, where support for the Ukrainian government remains strong and there is little affection for Putin.
Some reformist election candidates had already come under scrutiny for previous comments: one said Britain should have remained neutral in the fight against the Nazis and another used anti-Semitic tropes, claiming Jewish groups were “agitating for the mass importation of Muslims into England.”
The party has blamed some of its problems on growing pains and has threatened legal action against a private company it paid to vet candidates.
