Starmer backs Sunak after Reform activists hurled racist slur at PM

Sir Keir Starmer has voiced support for Rishi Sunak after a Reform activist was secretly recorded directing a racial slur towards the Prime Minister. 

When asked about the incident the Labour leader said he shared the PM’s ‘disgust’ at the comments made by campaigner for Nigel Farage in Clacton. 

Sir Keir accused Mr Farage of not doing enough following the incident, and added that it is the leader who sets the ‘tone, the culture and the standards’ of a political party.

Speaking on a campaign visit in Hampshire, he said: ‘I don’t think (Mr Farage) has shown the leadership he should’ve shown. There’s no good condemning remarks after the event.

‘If you lead a party you set the tone, and the culture, and the standards of your party, and I don’t think he’s done enough in terms of leadership.’

Asked if he sympathised with the Prime Minister, Sir Keir said: ‘I do, and I thought what he said about his daughters in particular was very powerful.

‘And I’m glad he said it and I share his disgust at the comments that were made.’

In response to the incident, Mr Sunak said: ‘To know my girls may have heard their dad be called a ‘f****** P***’ by someone campaigning for Reform is shocking. We are better than that as a country.’

The footage, recorded by an undercover reporter for Channel 4 News, showed Reform campaigner Andrew Parker using a racist term about Mr Sunak and suggesting migrants should be used as ‘target practice’. 

Also in the video George Jones, a veteran UKIP supporter who now runs events for Mr Farage’s campaign, made homophobic comments. 

Mr Jones, who spotted a pride flag displayed on a police car, described the pride flag as ‘degenerate’ and suggested members of the LGBT community are paedophiles.

He said: ‘You see that f****** degenerate flag on the front bonnet? What are the old bill doing promoting that crap? 

‘They should be out catching nonces not promoting the f******.’ 

Security minister Tom Tugendhat said there was a ‘pattern of racist and misogynistic views’ within Reform UK.  

Mr Tugendhat said it was just the latest incident involving candidates or activists associated with Reform.

He told Times Radio: ‘There’s many decent people vote for every political party and there’s many decent people who will vote for Reform.

‘But what we’re trying to do is to remind people, to try to make clear to people, what it is that Reform really is.’

He said Mr Farage has ‘clearly done almost no due diligence on who he’s asking to carry his message’.

‘There is a real pattern of racist and misogynistic views in the party. I think it’s absolutely right to call it out,’ he added.

In a Times interview, Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch said wavering Tories considering backing Reform should think again.

She said: ‘What I am asking those people who are Reform voters, or considering voting Reform, is that you are good people, I know that you feel some disappointment with our party, but don’t let these people who claim to be like you get in.

‘They are not like you all. They are a totally different thing.’

She said Reform was made up of ‘people who are not fit to make the decisions about your life’.

She rejected calls from some of her colleagues to join forces with Mr Farage after the election and let him into the Conservative fold.

Ms Badenoch said: ‘Why is he getting a special pass? He is like the wolf in the three little pigs story. He wants to blow your house down. The wolf is coming to destroy you. He’s not coming for a cup of tea.’

Mr Farage has claimed the Clacton expose was ‘a political set-up of astonishing proportions’, highlighting Mr Parker’s background as an actor.

He added he was ‘not going to apologise’ as what had happened was a ‘set-up, a deliberate attempt to smear us’.

Mr Parker has previously said that his volunteering for Reform was separate from his acting job, adding that he had been ‘goaded’ into making the comments caught on camera.

Channel 4 hit back at the allegations Mr Parker was a paid actor, with a spokesperson for the broadcaster saying: ‘We met Mr Parker for the first time at Reform UK party headquarters, where he was a Reform party canvasser.’

Mr Farage also claimed the audience on BBC’s Question Time on Friday, during which he was questioned about his party’s supporters, ‘was rigged’.

He said: ‘These were not ordinary members of the public. They hand-picked a prominent pro-Palestine activist and even a BBC TV Director to attack me.’

A spokesperson for the BBC told MailOnline: ‘We refute these claims. 

‘Last night’s Question Time audience was made up of broadly similar levels of representation from Reform UK and the Green Party, with the other parties represented too. There were also a number of people, with a range of political views, who were still making up their mind.’