Will the racism row affect Farage's election prospects?

Channel 4's exposé of the racist and homophobic language used by some Reform UK activists working on Nigel Farage's campaign in Clacton has once again raised questions about the party's culture and attitudes.

- SEAN O'GRADY

There have been multiple cases of Reform UK candidates being discovered to have expressed problematic views on social media, albeit in some cases dating back many years. Farage himself has come under sustained attack for expressing his admiration for Vladimir Putin “as an operator”, and his accusation that the EU and Nato “poked the Russian bear” and provided Putin with a casus belli for his 2022 invasion.

The question is what these developments will mean for Reform and Farage’s electoral prospects...

What’s the latest trouble?

A Channel 4 journalist infiltrated the Clacton campaign and secretly recorded some hateful language used by some of Farage’s team.

This included the use of the P-word in relation to Rishi Sunak, and the use of the word “nonces” about the LGBT+ community. Farage has declared: “I am dismayed by the reported comments of a handful of people associated with my local campaign, particularly those who are volunteers. They will no longer be with the campaign. 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. Some of the language used was reprehensible.”

How widespread is this sort of thing in Reform UK?

It’s a difficult question to answer. Obviously, common sense tells us that not every candidate, member of the party or Reform UK voter is a racist homophobe, and neither are all of them worried about immigration; but it is also true that people who are inclined to such opinions tend to find more to agree with in the Reform UK programme than, say, that of the Greens, the SNP or Labour.