Farage Filmed Resisting Advisers Who Wanted a Candidate Sacked
Fresh undercover footage shows the Reform leader pushing back when senior staff said a mayoral candidate accused of racist remarks about David Lammy had to go. His communications chief, who had called the candidate “clearly a racist” and said “he needs to go, I’m getting rid of him”, told him to his face: “You’re protecting him.”
This is new material rather than yesterday’s, and it reaches the leader personally. His reply, to laughter, was that an apology would do: “It’s showing a bit of… bit of sorrow… Just take the deal. Trouble is he’s a rear admiral. That’s the problem.” The candidate, Chris Parry, stayed on for months after it emerged he had said Mr Lammy should “go home to the Caribbean”; he was suspended in March, says there was never any investigation and has since left. He defends himself by pointing to context, saying he exercises his “right to criticise anyone in power… whom I judge to be acting against the interests of the British people”. The footage also has Sarah Pochin, one of Reform’s two female MPs, on her own colleagues: “they just exclude you if you’re a woman. It’s really tough being a girl with all of this alpha male shit going on.” On vetting, a former branch chairman advised an undercover reporter to delete posts supporting Tommy Robinson and apply anyway. Reform accuses the broadcaster of “extreme methods of deception” and says there is “no room for racism” in the party. The documentary airs on Sunday.