Nigel Farage called out for ‘blanket accusation’ as he says ‘growing number’ of Muslims ‘loathe’ British values

Published

4 months ago

May 27, 2024

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Nigel Farage has argued on Sky News that a “growing number” of young Muslims in the UK do not subscribe to British values.

The Reform UK honorary president told Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: “We have a growing number of young people in this country who do not subscribe to British values.

“In fact, loathe much of what we stand for. I think we see them on the streets of London every Saturday.”

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Reaction to Farage comments as campaigning continues

Asked if “we are talking about Muslims here”, Mr Farage said: “We are. And I’m afraid I found some of the recent surveys saying that 46% of British Muslims support Hamas – support a terrorist organisation that is proscribed in this country.”

The former UKIP and Brexit Party leader was quoting a poll commissioned by the Henry Jackson Society in April that found one in four British Muslims believe Hamas committed murder and rape in Israel on 7 October last year.

Hamas killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages in the raid on southern Israel. Since then, Israel’s response in Gaza has killed more than 35,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry – and the war has become a divisive issue in British politics.

‘Can you imagine how offensive that is?’

Mr Farage also claimed: “Nobody in history has allowed more people in who are potentially really going to fight against British values than Mr Sunak.”

The Reform president said there was a contrast between Muslims and those who came from the West Indies, who he said had a shared heritage with the UK.

But Sir Trevor, whose parents were part of the Windrush generation, challenged him and said British culture was forced on them by their British slave owners.

“You’re trying to say to me, ‘you guys are not really like these other guys’,” Sir Trevor said.

“Can you imagine how offensive that is to British Muslims?”

Mr Farage replied by asking how many people “in your community failed to speak English?” – to which Sir Trevor said: “We all speak English,” – before adding that many British Muslims did, too.

The Reform UK director said he was “not here to attack the religion of Islam” and insisted he had not been doing so.

“I’m blaming elements of that community. I’m not blaming them. I’m stating a fact,” Mr Farage said.

“All I’m doing is stating in fact, no one else dares tell the truth about this.

“On the broader question, the biggest single problem this country faces is the population explosion. And it will not be debated in this election.

“Why? Because Labour started it and the Tories accelerated it. That has led to a problem on a scale unimaginable”

Farage defends consequences of Brexit

Mr Farage also denied being responsible for immigration increases following Brexit – a lifelong campaign of his.

“Biggest load of cobblers I’ve ever heard in my life,” he said.

“What we did by leaving the European Union was to change a policy which meant we discriminated against the rest of the world, often against talent, in favour of an open door with the EU.

“What Brexit did was give us back control of our own.”

He accused Boris Johnson of “setting the bars and the levels at the lowest possible level” and allowing students to bring their dependents in when “we haven’t got room”.

“If you want mass immigration, vote Conservative, if you want mass immigration, vote Labour,” he added.

Mr Farage earlier this week announced he would not be standing in the general election.

He told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips he chose not to because he would have “to start from scratch” and six weeks was not long enough for him to campaign.

Politics

Lisa Nandy says Sir Keir Starmer ‘very sensible’ to accept football tickets worth thousands

Published

13 hours ago

September 21, 2024

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Lisa Nandy says Sir Keir Starmer 'very sensible' to accept football tickets worth thousands

Lisa Nandy has said Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to accept thousands of pounds worth of football tickets was “very sensible”.

The minister for culture, media and sport also said she had never accepted free clothes from a donor.

Speaking to Sky News at the start of the Labour Party conference today, the MP for Wigan said: “The problem that has arisen since [Sir Keir] became leader of the opposition and then prime minister is that for him to sit in the stands would require a huge security detail, would be disruptive for other people and it would cost the taxpayer a lot of money.

“So I think he’s taken a very sensible decision that’s not the right and appropriate thing to do, and it’s right to accept that he has to go and sit in a different area.

“But I know that he’d much rather be sitting in the stands cheering people on with the usual crowd that he’s been going to the football with for years.”

Ms Nandy also said while she has not accepted free clothes – joking “I think you can probably see that I choose my own clothes sadly” – she doesn’t “make any judgements about what other members of parliament do”.

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She said: “The only judgement I would make is if they’re breaking the rules, so they’re trying to hide what they’re doing. That’s when problems arise.

“Because the point of being open and transparent is that people can see where the relationships are, and they can then judge for themselves whether there’s been any undue influence.”

She asserted there had not been an undue influence in gifts accepted by senior Labour figures, adding: “We don’t want the news and the commentary to be dominated by conversations about clothes.

“We rightly have a system, I think, where the taxpayer doesn’t fund these things. We don’t claim on expenses for them. And so MPs will always take donations, will always take gifts in kind.

“MPs of all political parties have historically done that and that is the system that we have.”

She added: “I don’t think there’s any suggestion here that Keir Starmer has broken any rules. I don’t think there’s any suggestion that he’s done anything wrong.

“We expect our politicians to be well turned out, we expect them to be people who go out and represent us at different events and represent the country at different events and are clothed appropriately.

“But the point is that when we accept donations for that or for anything else, that we declare them and we’re open and transparent about them.”

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Sir Keir, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves said yesterday they will no longer accept donations in the future to pay for clothes.

The announcement followed criticism of Sir Keir’s gifts from donors, which included clothing worth £16,200 and multiple pairs of glasses worth £2,485, according to the MPs’ register of interests.

The register shows Ms Rayner has accepted clothing donations to the value of £2,230.

Sky News also revealed the scale of Sir Keir’s donations this week as part of our Westminster Accounts investigation.

Sir Keir was found to have received substantially more gifts and freebies than any other MP – his total in gifts, benefits, and hospitality topped £100,000 since December 2019.