The senior Cabinet minister compared the Reform UK leader to Enoch Powell, known for the phrase ‘rivers of blood’ during a speech in in 1968 blamed for inflaming racial tensions
Nigel Farage is “today’s incarnation of the politics of Enoch Powell”, Business Secretary Peter Kyle has claimed.
The senior Cabinet minister hit out at the Reform UK leader while speaking at the Co-operative Party conference.
Making his address, Mr Kyle had begun by saying the Government’s goal of boosting economic growth was needed to “build an economy and a politics that people can trust to deliver for themselves, their families and their communities”.
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Speaking at the conference in London, he said: “The truth is that without securing higher, sustained economic growth, reconnecting people and politics, generating trust in the potential of democracy and importance of good government becomes almost impossible.
“And the appeal of the parties of the far right – with their dogma of disruption, division and despair – becomes more alluring.
“We see it today with Reform, just as we did in previous times with the National Front and the British National Party. Lack of economic growth is the cause. Nigel Farage – today’s incarnation of the politics of Enoch Powell – is the effect.”
Enoch Powell made a speech widely remembered for the phrase “rivers of blood” in 1968, when he was a Conservative shadow minister, which was blamed for inflaming racial tensions at the time.
It is not the first time Mr Kyle has attacked the Reform leader, taking him to task earlier this year over Mr Farage’s opposition to the Government’s Online Safety Act.
In response, Mr Kyle – then the technology secretary – claimed people like Jimmy Savile would use the internet to exploit children if he was still alive, and insisted anyone against the Act, like Mr Farage, was “on their side”.
The Co-operative Party, which is affiliated with Labour via a longstanding electoral pact, also heard from the Communities Secretary, Steve Reed. He also spoke about parties and politicians “who feed off the decline and division”, pointing to Reform UK.
Mr Reed added: “But whatever our differences in our backgrounds, wherever we come from, people have a shared interest in making their own community as successful as it can be, so that is where we must build the bridges that bring people together.”