Nigel Farage ‘dismayed’ after Reform UK canvasser ‘filmed calling Rishi Sunak f*****g p**i’
27 June 2024, 22:00 | Updated: 28 June 2024, 14:50
Nigel Farage has said he is "dismayed" after a Reform UK canvasser was filmed calling Rishi Sunak a "f*****g p**i" by an undercover reporter.
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The footage was taken by Channel 4 News in Clacton, where Mr Farage hopes to become an MP in next week's General Election.
The comments were made by Andrew Parker, who has since issued an apology.
“I’ve always been a Tory voter,” he was filmed saying.
“But what annoys me is that f---ing P--- we’ve got in. What good is he? You tell me, you know. He’s just wet. F---ing useless.”
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In a statement, Mr Parker responded: “I would like to make it clear that neither Nigel Farage personally or the Reform Party are aware of my personal views on immigration.”
Responding to the footage, the Reform UK leader said: “I am dismayed by the reported comments of a handful of people associated with my local campaign, particularly those who are volunteers.
“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.”
It comes less than two weeks after a Reform UK parliamentary candidate resigned after social media comments emerged in which he called on people to vote for the British National Party.
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Grant StClair-Armstrong, who was standing in Kemi Badenoch’s constituency in North West Essex, was also found to have posted jokes using racial slurs and about “female hormones”, according to The Times.
Meanwhile, an LBC investigation found that Reform UK candidate Steve Chilcott said ‘Islam and Nazis are the same thing’ during a public 2017 rant.
A video of the father of one, who’s standing in the Ealing Southall constituency in West London, was posted online at the time, in which he also said Paris was “full of Islamic, immigrant, scum”.
LBC has also unearthed previously unseen footage, filmed by one of our reporters in 2018, of Mr Chilcott saying the “only reason” Islam was growing was because of a “lack of contraception”.
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Reform’s leader Nigel Farage and chairman Richard Tice have publicly defended the party’s vetting process for candidates, but last month, Tice admitted to LBC that they rely on the media to do certain background checks for them.
Another Reform UK candidate was forced to apologise after suggesting the country would have been “far better” off if it had “taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality” during the Second World War.
Mr Farage said it was ‘utter cobblers’ that Reform UK candidates had voiced ’Nazi sympathies’ as he took calls from listeners on LBC earlier this month.
He was confronted on air with comments made by individuals standing for Reform UK, including one who described the pandemic as a ‘health holocaust’ and a another who said vaccine firms were like ‘Nazi armament companies.”
Mr Farage dismissed the remarks, saying: “People chuck stuff around on Facebook and they like comments.”
