Joe Lycett expertly mocks Nigel Farage in open letter about race riots
‘Even though you say you’re not a racist, do you think some racists use your words as encouragement to do racist things?’ comedian asked
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Joe Lycett has expertly mocked Nigel Farage in an open letter to the politician addressing the race riots.
The comedian, who won a Bafta earlier this year for his entertainment series Late Night Lycett, regularly uses his platform to make searing political statements.
Over the years, he has panicked parliament with his pranks and made headlines after mocking Liz Truss during a appearance on Laura Kuenssburg’s BBC politics show.
He’s now set his sights on Reform leader Farage, writing an open letter that tackled the politician’s views on immigration amid the recent racist and Islamophobic riots.
It arrives after Farage continued to allege that these riots, which followed the killings of three girls in Southport, were due to a lack of information provided to the public by authorities.
“As the arbiter of what are ‘fair and legitimate’ questions, I wondered if you could let me know if you consider the below to be ‘fair and legitimate’ questions,” Lycett wrote.
The comedian then added a series of questions, some of which were serious and others of which were designed to be tongue-in-cheek.
These included: “Are all immigrants bad or is it OK if they come from Europe and then become your wife? Which character do you think Tommy Robinson would choose on Mario Kart? Why is there always one fly in my house?”
He concluded the letter by asking: “Even though you say you’re not a racist, do you think some racists use your words as encouragement to do racist things?”
Lycett shared the letter to his followers on X/Twitter, writing: My letter to Nigel Farage. Hope the font doesn’t hurt his eyes and brings on a migrant.”
It was false claims shared about the suspect’s name and faith on social media that whipped up anger that contributed to the riots that have blighted England in the last two weeks.
However, despite the trouble, Farage has continued to stick by his line of questioning. On Talk TV on Thursday (8 August), he said: “What I did sense... was we weren’t being told anything.
“We had a lot of, I saw it as you did, ‘He arrived on a boat across the Channel last October, he was a Muslim activist, etc.’ And I said, can you tell us, was this man on a watch list? Yes or no. Remember the London Bridge attacks, within an hour of the attack we knew the man had been on a watch list.
“One of the reasons the Southport riots were as bad as they were, one of the reasons the mosque itself was targeted was because the authorities didn’t tell us quickly enough what the truth was.
“We then learnt a few hours later he was born in Cardiff and actually he wasn’t a radical Islamist at all. But my question about whether he was on a watch list still hasn’t been answered.”
Farage has seen his approval ratings fall over the last week; he has experienced a seven-point decline in his net favourability score.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments