Election latest: Farage on defensive after supporters caught on camera making racist, murderous and homophobic remarks | Politics News

Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, is facing questions on a BBC Question Time leaders’ special this evening, and he was asked firstly: “What is it about you and your party that attracts racists and extremists, whether you say you want them or not?”

The question got a loud round of applause and cheers from the audience.

Mr Farage replied that he has “done more to drive the far-right out of the British politics than anyone else alive” – to a few scoffs in the audience.

He said he “took on the BNP” and has never allowed extremists to join his parties.

Addressing the Channel 4 report that showed Reform activists in his own office making racist remarks about PM and homophobic remarks, Mr Farage said: “What happened over that last weekend was truly astonishing.

“A tirade of invective abuse directed at the prime minister – I mean, the whole thing was unbelievable.”

But Mr Farage went on to say that it “didn’t ring true”, and claimed that the activist filmed in his office calling Rishi Sunak a “P***” was a plant of some kind.

“Let me tell you, from the minute he turned up in that office in Clacton and I saw him, he was acting from the very start.”

Mr Farage continued to double-down when pushed, claiming that this was a “political set up of astonishing proportions”.

“I want nothing to do with people like him and he has nothing to do with us. He’s somebody who turned up. We didn’t know who he was.”

A spokesperson for Channel 4 News said: “We strongly stand by our rigorous and duly impartial journalism which speaks for itself.

“We met Mr Parker for the first time at Reform UK party headquarters, where he was a Reform party canvasser.

“We did not pay the Reform UK canvasser or anyone else in this report. Mr Parker was not known to Channel 4 News and was filmed covertly via the undercover operation.”