ITV exposé on Reform UK racism meets silence from Farage and his MPs
ITV broadcast an exposé on Sunday night documenting widespread racism and misogyny within Reform UK, and by Monday morning no Reform MP had appeared on air to defend the party. Nigel Farage gave no public response.
ITV exposé on Reform UK racism meets silence from Farage and his MPs
A quiet Monday morning for Reform
The ITV exposé on Reform UK racism went out on Sunday night, and by Monday morning the party's benches were missing from the airwaves. Every Reform MP was otherwise engaged, as the columnist puts it, and there was nothing from Nigel Farage on the programme.
The one Reform figure who did post that morning was Richard Tice, and his main gripe was that British Airways was yet another failing British institution because it had mislaid at least one of his bags. Tice had only just got married to Isabel Oakeshott.
What ITV filmed
The footage, as the columnist recounts it, involved roughly 10 Reform councillors, seven of whom held views he describes as extreme - including wanting King Charles beheaded for being a Muslim, a rate of about 70%.
- Matt Goodwin, the party's failed candidate for the Gorton and Denton byelection, defended Reform on Times Radio, arguing that Nigel Farage was a buffer zone against racism and that the documentary exposed only a few bad apples.
- Days earlier, Robert Jenrick had suggested that racist views in organisations were commonplace, saying the BBC was riddled with paedophiles and Reform was awash with racists.
Westminster moves on to defence questions
In the Commons, Wes Streeting answered departmental defence questions, criticising his predecessor as defence secretary, John Healey, for wasting money on unnecessary training exercises. Streeting announced he was confident that Healey would reach the necessary 3% and 3.5% defence spending targets at next year's spending review.
The session covered a range of other matters:
- Streeting dismissed concerns about Donald Trump switching the Starlink satellite system on and off at random moments, which the columnist says allowed Russian drones to damage Ukraine.
- He was also unconcerned about Trump allowing Russian imports of diesel to lower US pump prices - fuel that the Russians had themselves imported from Iran.
- Streeting said he had met Pete Hegseth the previous week, during which the secretary for war had reiterated Trump's claims that Nato forces had been a waste of space in Afghanistan and that US troops fought alone.
- Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge did not raise the four drones of the "Britannia shield" in his questions.
- Sharron Davies, the former swimmer turned Tory peer, demanded to know why Andy Burnham hadn't invaded France to stop the rioting.
The defence questions session took place in the week before the budget, which was scheduled for the following week.
