Nigel Farage takes part in Question Time election special – as it happened

A Scottish council has taken urgent action to ensure people who have not received postal votes can still have their say in next week’s general election, PA media reports.

Edinburgh city council has taken the unusual step of setting up an emergency centre where locals who have yet to receive their ballot can have one reissued, or can even cast their vote ahead of 4 July, PA says. Earlier today John Swinney, the first minister, said it was “deeply unacceptable” for people about to leave on holiday not to have their postal votes already. (See 10.20am.)

In his interview on ITV’s Loose Women, Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, claimed that no one in Britain had done more than he had to fight the far right. He said:

Nobody has fought harder against the far right in British politics than me. I almost single-handedly destroyed the British National party. I’ve always said I don’t want anybody supporting me who’s got prejudices.

Farage was referring to the way the rise of Ukip coincided with the decline of the BNP as an electoral force.

Asked, if that was the case, why Reform UK was attracting support from extremists, Farage said

Ironically, I think because we destroyed the BNP, they haven’t got the BNP to go to any more. I think that’s the problem, just as hard-left extremists go to the Labour party

Asked about his own views, and the fact that a teacher described him as fascist when he was a pupil at Dulwich College,

To go back 45 years, when a few of us were winding up school teachers, is irrelevant.

Farage also suggested someone in his family was gay. Asked about homophobia, and what he would feel about having a relative who was gay, he replied:

Without going too deeply into it, and without giving personal things away, I understand completely what you are talking about. As with every family, we see this, as we see many other things. I’m incredibly tolerant. To be honest, I don’t care what people are. I judge them as human beings, whether they are good people or not.

Asked again if he would not have a problem having a gay family member, he replied: “I’ve just answered that – without getting into detail.”

Here is more from what Nigel Farage said on ITV’s Loose Women about the Channel 4 News exposé of racism in Reform UK. (See 1.38pm.)

Referring to Andrew Parker, the activist who featured most prominently, Farage said:

When I saw the footage last night, I thought no one speaks like that. You know, ‘We’re going to turn mosques into Wetherspoon’s’. It all seemed a bit over the top.

So someone told us he was an actor. You rang him this morning, the Daily Telegraph rang him this morning. He denied point blank he was an actor. It turns out he is an actor. We found his website. He’s a well-spoken actor who does something called “rough speaking”.

I was at the office when he arrived last Saturday. He was doing rough-speaking. It was an act right from the very start.

I was working and he came in and come up to me and said hello, and then he went out canvassing where the undercovering filming took place.

And he was rough speaking. He was not being himself from day one. I have to tell you, this whole thing is a complete and total setup. Of that I have no doubt whatsoever.

Farage would not say who he thought was responsible for the setup, and he said he did not know whether or not Parker had been paid. But he said “something is wrong here”.

Channel 4 News has denied the claim the report was a setup (see 12.58pm), and Parker himself has said that he was volunteering to help Reform UK because he believed its message (see 12.38pm).

Asked about three other activists filmed in the report, including George Jones, a longtime party activist who organises events for Farage and who was recorded alling the Pride flag “degenerate” and LGBT people “nonces”, Farage said:

They had watched England play football, they were in the pub, drunk, it was crass, vulgar … It was unforgivably nasty, no question about that.

Asked if he wanted people like that in the party, Farage said: “No, I don’t, of course I don’t.” He claimed the three had been removed from the party.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has just finished an interview on ITV’s Loose Women and he used it to make explicit what this morning he was only implying on social media (see 12.38pm) – his claim that the Channel 4 News exposé of racism amongst his campaign team in Clacton was a setup.

Referring to Andrew Parker, the activist who featured most prominently in the report, and who used a racist slur to describe Rishi Sunak, Farage said: “It was an act right from the very start.”

Describing Parker as “rough speaking” and “not being himself”, Farage added:

I have to tell you, this whole thing was a complete and total setup, I have no doubt about that.

Asked whether he thought Parker had been paid, he said:

I don’t know whether he was paid or not … I’m saying it’s possible, I don’t know. Something is wrong here.

Channel 4 News has already rejected this claim strongly. See 12.58pm.

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Rishi Sunak has spoken about the hurt and anger he felt when he heard a Reform UK activist using a racial slur about him.

In a broadcast interview, he said he was particularly upset about his daughters having to hear what was said. And he made a point of repeating the slur himself (the P-word) because he said it was important to call it out for what it was.

Asked about the comment, one of several racist and homophobic comments made by Reform UK activists in Clacton and filmed by an undercover Channel 4 News reporter, Sunak said:

When my two daughters have to see and hear Reform people who campaign for Nigel Farage calling me an effing [P-word], it hurts and it makes me angry, and I think he has some questions to answer.

And I don’t repeat those words lightly. I do so deliberately, because this is too important not to call out clearly for what it is.

Asked if it was frustrating for Sunak to know that some former Tory supporters were backing a party whose activists behave like this, Sunak said:

When you see Reform candidates and campaigners seemingly using racist and misogynistic language and opinions, seemingly without challenge, I think it tells you something about the culture within the Reform party.

Andrew Tate isn’t an important voice for men. He is a vile misogynist, and our politics and country is better than that.

And as prime minister, but more importantly as a father of two young girls, it’s my duty to call out this corrosive and divisive behaviour.

This post was amended on 28 June 2024 to make clear it was Rishi Sunak speaking about Reform candidates using racist and misogynistic language.

1:03

Channel 4 News has rejected the suggestion from Nigel Farage that its report exposing Reform UK activists making racist and homophobic comments in Clacton, where Farage is standing for election, was some sort of setup.

Farage has been implying this in posts on X this morning. (See 12.38pm.)

In response, a spokesperson for Channel 4 News said:

We strongly stand by our rigorous and duly impartial journalism which speaks for itself. We met [Andrew] Parker [the activist who has also worked as an actor] 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.

28 Jun 202407.53 EDT

Peter Walker

Two senior shadow ministers with campaign responsibilities somewhat dodged the question when asked whether Labour was deliberately not engaging as much as it might with Reform as a party, and whether this should be re-thought.

Speaking after a campaign event in Croydon, Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow paymaster general, said Labour was “working hard to win the trust of every voter”, including those leaning towards Reform.

Ellie Reeves, Labour’s deputy campaign coordinator, said the party would “continue to speak to as many people as possible and win their trust, because they’re not taking anything for granted”.

Pressed on why Labour were not challenging Reform more, Ashworth added:

At the end of the day, people are going to wake up on 5 July with either Keir Starmer or Rishi Sunak in No 10. And that’s the choice at this election.

Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, held a rally with the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar this morning. They were promoting Labour’s new deal for working people.

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Labour politicians have urged Tata to avoid taking action that cannot be reversed before the election result after the steel giant announced it was bringing forward plans to shut down blast furnaces at its biggest plant because of a strike.

Responding to the news, Stephen Kinnock, who is seeking re-election as MP for Aberafan Maesteg, and David Rees, Labour’s MS (member of the Senedd) for Aberavon, said:

Everybody recognises that the number one priority in these negotiations has to be the safety and security of steelworkers and the plant.

Tata wouldn’t be in this position of facing strike action had it not chosen to press ahead at break-neck speed with the closures of the blast furnaces.

We have been consistently clear throughout this process that Tata should avoid taking any action that cannot be reversed before waiting to see the result of the general election, given the very real prospect of sitting down with an incoming Labour government to discuss its promised £2.5bn Steel Renewal Fund.

More immediately, Tata and Unite must get back around the table to reach an agreement on securing the safety of the site at all times which would include agreeing on the derogations required to prevent strikes causing safety risks, thus removing the need to close down Blast Furnace 5 early.

This will allow an incoming Labour government time to negotiate the future of steel making in Wales with Tata.

Andrew Parker, the Reform UK supporter recorded by an undercover Channel 4 News reporter making racist comments, including about Rishi Sunak, has apologisied, PA Media reports.

Parker told PA he had made the comments in “the heat of the moment” because he was being “goaded on”. He said:

Of course I regret what I said. Christ, I’m not a racist. I’ve had Muslim girlfriends. It was typical chaps-down-the-pub talk.

Asked whether he would like to apologise, he said: “Of course I’m sorry. They were off-the-cuff things that everyone says.”

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has highlighted the fact that Parker has worked as an actor, implying this suggests the exposé was a set up.

Andrew Parker was the man that made the astonishing racist comments that have given us so much negative coverage.

We now learn that he is an actor by profession.

His own website says he is ‘well spoken’ but from the moment he arrived in Clacton he was doing what he calls ‘rough speaking’.

This whole episode does not add up.

Parker told PA that he was an actor but that he was volunteering to help Reform UK because he believed in its message.

Farage is now regularly floating conspirary theories which he cites as evidence that people are treating his party unfairly (Ofcom was behind one, he suggested recently, and his vetting company an other) and it seems very unlikely that Parker was part of a Channel 4 plot.

Parker was not the only Reform UK Clacton activist recorded making extremist comments. And there are now many examples of Reform UK candidates with a record of extremism and racism who are normally disowned by the party when their comments are highlighted by the media. Farage says he and his party are opposed to racism. But racists don’t seem to be opposed to Reform UK, and the party attracts them like a magnet.