Nigel Farage has blasted the mainstream media, accusing them of a “stitch-up”.
The Reform boss is under pressure to deal with allegations of racism from within his party after a Channel 4 investigation found a campaigner had called Rishi Sunak a “f*****ng [P-word]”.
Essex Police said they were “urgently assessing” racist and homophobic comments made by Reform campaigners.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Farage addressed the “attacks” against his party, which he claims is evidence they are performing well.
Nigel Farage has lamented a ‘stitch-up’
YOUTUBE / NIGEL FARAGE / CHANNEL 4
“Six days to go util the General Election, and boy we are doing well”, he said.
“How do I know? The level of attacks. To begin with, they’ve dug out a statement from me ten years ago saying I thought there’d be a war in Ukraine, that we’ve made some terrible errors of expanding NATO in the European Union.
“Well, I was right. They were all wrong. Funny isn’t it? That gets conflated into support for Vladimir Putin, which I never have. I have always thought he’s a very bad and dangerous person.
“That was the beginning. That was the beginning of the real pushback against Reform UK, against the momentum that is happening out there in the country.”
Farage went onto suggest the campaigner captured by Channel 4 was an actor.
He said: “Over the last 24 hours, a so-called Reform UK activist turns up in the Clacton office, goes out with an undercover, apparently Channel 4 team, and makes a series of very racist, derogatory remarks about Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, about people crossing the Channel.
“I watched this stuff and thought it’s just so over the top. This is like an Alf Garnett comedy sketch going back 50 years.
“Yet overnight, we found out that the guy is an actor. The Daily Telegraph called him this morning and he denied it.
“After a short period of time, he admitted to other media outlets that he was an actor. Then we found out he had his own website where he speaks and advertises his services for adverts.
“He describes himself as being very well spoken, but he has an alter ego.”
Rishi Sunak says he was ‘hurt’ by the remarks
PA
Farage went on to hit out at Channel 4, calling the whole affair a “stitch up on the most astonishing scale”.
He added: “An activist for a party, not a candidate, who holds no position whatsoever, makes the front page of the Times newspaper.
“The Prime Minister responds to say how awful he feels for his two daughters about these racist remarks that were made about his family.
“Folks, this is the biggest stitch-up I have ever seen in my life.”
Channel 4 has stood by its “rigorous and duly impartial journalism”.
“We met Mr. Parker for the first time at Reform UK party headquarters, where he was a Reform party canvasser,” the channel said in a statement.
They said Parker was filmed by an undercover investigator inside the Reform UK campaign and that no one paid for the footage.
