UK’s Reform party drops three election candidates over offensive comments

LONDON - Britain’s hard-right Reform UK party, led by Brexiteer Nigel Farage, has withdrawn support for three candidates for next week’s general election over allegations that they made offensive comments, local media reported on June 29.

Mr Farage’s anti-immigration group – tipped to take support away from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives in the July 4 vote – has been embroiled in a racism scandal as the election campaign enters its final days.

Reform no longer endorses Mr Edward Oakenfull, Mr Robert Lomas and Mr Leslie Lilley, but they will still appear on the ballot paper as Reform candidates since it is too late for them to be removed, said BBC and Sky News.

Mr Oakenfull, standing in Derbyshire in the East Midlands area of England, is accused of having posted on social media in 2023 derogatory comments about the IQ of sub-Saharan Africans.

Mr Lomas, a candidate in Barnsley in north England, reportedly made offensive comments about black people.

Mr Lilley, seeking to become an MP in Southend in south-east England, allegedly described irregular migrants arriving in Britain on small boats as “scum”, adding: “I hope your family get robbed, beaten or attacked.”

Appearing on BBC Television on the night of June 28, Mr Farage disowned the trio, saying: “I want nothing to do with them.”

The development came after Mr Sunak, Britain’s first leader of colour, denounced a racist slur used against him by a campaigner for Reform.

An undercover investigation by Channel 4 filmed campaigners making racist, homophobic and offensive comments in Clacton-on-Sea, in eastern England, where Mr Farage is hoping to be elected as an MP.

The supporter also called for Muslims to be kicked “out of mosques” and their places of worship to be turned into pubs.

Mr Farage suggested that the comments were a “complete and total set-up”, claiming without evidence that the man may have been paid to act in the video, possibly by opponents threatened by the party’s popularity. He has complained to Britain’s elections watchdog.

Channel 4 denied Mr Farage’s claims of fabrication.

In its report, another campaigner suggested that members of the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) community are paedophiles.

Reform UK has come under growing scrutiny in recent weeks as it climbs up the polls.

According to anti-racism organisation Hope Not Hate, the party has withdrawn at least 166 candidates since the beginning of the year, many of whom have made racist or offensive remarks.

Mr Farage, seeking to become an MP at the eighth attempt, has tried to blame a vetting company for not properly scrutinising would-be candidates.

The Tories and the main opposition Labour party, which is expected to win the election, accuse Mr Farage of failing to tackle racism in his party.

A new poll published by the Labour-supporting Mirror newspaper on June 28 put Mr Sunak’s Conservatives at 18 per cent, with Reform at 21 per cent, both well behind Labour at 38 per cent.

Support for Reform could split the right-wing vote, handing Labour a landslide, analysts say. AFP