The emergence of populist Nigel Farage into the campaign has attracted a huge amount of attention from the British media, much to the delight of a politician with an outsized ego. But all this attention has its downside: every outburst from the candidates, activists and volunteers of his party, Reform UK, is widely reported, raising reasonable doubts as to whether they are one-offs or whether they reveal the true nature of the party and its leader. Channel 4 has planted a reporter among Farage’s campaign team in the Clacton-on-Sea constituency for which he is contesting, and the hidden recordings obtained show a shocking level of xenophobia, racism, homophobia and sectarian violence.
“Let’s use the young army recruits. We take them with guns to the fucking beach to practice target shooting. Let them shoot everyone,” explains Andrew Parker, a party volunteer who goes door to door in the neighborhoods.canvassinga common electoral practice in the United Kingdom—which, according to him, should be done with illegal immigrants who arrive on the shores of England. “Let’s shoot them all. Think of Bradford [el término despectivo con que se llama a la ciudad de Bradford, donde un 30% de la población es musulmana]”We should put a barbed wire fence around them and get rid of them too,” insists Parker, who boasts to the hidden journalist that he has a good relationship with Farage.
The volunteer, with the loquacity of someone who feels like a protagonist for a few minutes, assures that all his life he has voted for the tories, as the Conservatives are known in British political jargon. “What irritates me now is the ‘fucking paki’ that we have as prime minister,” he says. Paki It is a term deeply A derogatory and racist slur that refers to the Pakistani community in the UK, but also to all citizens of Indian origin in general. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was born in Southampton, in the south of England, to an Indian father and mother of Tanzanian origin. He is a practising Hindu who does not hide his religious affiliation.
Clacton-on-Sea is one of the most degraded and impoverished areas of the United Kingdom in recent decades. Support for Brexit, during the 2016 referendum, obtained a record of more than 70% of the votes. Except in 2019, when its population turned out to support Boris Johnson, its political preference in the last elections has always been in favour of the various populist, eurosceptic and xenophobic parties with which Farage has competed: UKIP, Brexit Party and now Reform UK.
“I am dismayed by the comments that appeared on television from a handful of people on my local campaign team. They are no longer part of it,” Farage was quick to respond to the broadcast of the Channel 4 documentary, aware of the damage it could cause just over six days before the polls are held on July 4. “Reform UK is a party for everyone who believes in the United Kingdom. “I am proud of all my candidates and those who support us, and of a national campaign team that is made up of all types of identities and races,” he said.
In his purest style, the populist politician ended up turning his apologies into attacks: “I would like to know if Channel 4 has subjected grassroots activists of all parties to these same subterfuges, or if they have decided to dedicate Reform UK special attention,” he asked.
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Criticism of the king and black women candidates
It has not been necessary, however, to devote a great deal of effort to the search for blunders, barbarities and outbursts among the candidates and activists of the populist party. In the scant six weeks of campaigning, there have been members of Reform UK who have questioned the loyalty to the country of King Charles III – too progressive for their taste –; others have called immigrants “trash” and accused them of coming to the country “to ruin it and rape our women”; and some have demanded the deportation of black candidates from the Labour Party, such as the historic Diane Abbott.
Channel 4’s investigation has allowed Britons to hear, in all their rawness, the ideas that boil in the heads of Farage’s most fervent supporters. At one point in the report, several of them gather in a pub From Clacton-on-sea. George Jones, a veteran UKIP and Brexit Party member who is currently campaigning for Reform UK, is disgusted by a police car with a multicoloured LGBT flag on its bonnet: “Do you see that fucking degenerate flag on the bonnet? What are the police doing promoting that rubbish? They should be catching paedophiles, not advertising faggots,” he says. Roger Gravett, the party’s candidate for the Tottenham constituency, and Rob Bates, a member of the party’s national campaign team, nod in agreement.
Latest tracking published by the polling company YouGov gives Reform UK 17% support, just one point behind the Conservative Party. But the same company, in a poll commissioned by the newspaper The Times just two weeks ago, he put Farage ahead of Sunak. tories The Sunaks have shown their nervousness throughout the campaign, given the not-so-remote possibility that the populist party could equal or surpass them in the number of votes, and for the first time in its history obtain seats in the House of Commons. The hard and moderate wings of the party even got into a damaging debate at the beginning of the campaign about whether or not to lift the cordon sanitaire on Farage and seek an alliance with his party. Only in the final stretch, and timidly, has Sunak’s team decided to attack the person who currently represents the main existential threat they face.
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