Will the row about racist language affect Reform’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.

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...

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 “n***es” 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.”

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.

According to the campaign group Hope Not Hate, by May of this year Reform had had to remove more than 100 general election candidates since the start of the year, more than a dozen of whom were sacked after offensive and racist comments were revealed.

Since then, further such cases have come to light. For example:

However, these candidates will still be on their respective ballot papers as Reform candidates, as it’s too late to change that and replace them under the rules.

Farage says the party is not “perfect” and blames the failures of a vetting company for its problems, adding: “We’ve had one or two candidates that have said things they shouldn’t have said. In most cases, they’re just speaking like ordinary folk. They’re not part of the mainstream political Oxbridge speak, we understand that. In some cases, one or two people let us down, and we let them go.”

Well, they are also capable of making controversial remarks. Farage himself, after all, questioned Sunak’s patriotism after the prime minister ducked out early from the D-Day commemorations – a decision that was acknowledged by Sunak himself to have been a woeful mistake. Farage further remarked that it “shows the man doesn’t understand. He is not patriotic, he doesn’t care about our history, our culture.”

Farage said that what he meant was that Sunak was “utterly disconnected – by class, by privilege – from how the ordinary folk in this country feel”. His critics claim that he was using “dog whistle” tactics. Scholars of Farage might also consult Michael Crick’s excellent biography, One Party After Another, for a more comprehensive assessment of his evolving beliefs).

Other questionable episodes include the co-deputy leader of the party, Ben Habib, saying he would, in extreme circumstances, be prepared to watch irregular migrants drown; and the chair Richard Tice’s refusal to take action against Ben Aston, the party’s candidate in Bournemouth West. Aston stated in a now-deleted post on Twitter/X: “These endless takes from Jews are horrendous. Many of the powerful groups agitating for the mass import into England of Muslims from the Third World are Jewish. The resultant societal problems have been visible for decades.”

Tice’s reaction on X seems to have been as follows: “An apology. One of our candidates farted yesterday. The ever windy Daily Mail and Tory Party want him to resign. We will not be launching an investigation.”

It’s certainly true that Farage’s opinions about the war in Ukraine, said by opponents to amount to Chamberlainesque appeasement, have seen Reform lose momentum in the polls. The steady stream of revelations about Reform and scrutiny of its policies may also erode support and make some borderline supporters reconsider their voting intention.

On the other hand, there is undoubtedly a section of the electorate that sympathises with some of the extremist views expressed, and may conclude that Reform is saying what they’re thinking. Farage admitted that some damage had been done by the Putin controversy, and said: “I think the other thing that’s perhaps had a bigger impact is we’ve just had too many candidates who’ve said stupid things. I think that’s perhaps the reason that we’ve dropped off a little bit.”