Reform Aide Accused Nigel Farage Of 'Protecting' Candidate Who Told David Lammy To 'Go Home'

A senior Reform UK official accused Nigel Farage of “protecting” a mayoral candidate who said David Lammy should “go back home to the Caribbean”.

The party’s leader was urged to sack Chris Parry last December after he said in a social media post that was where the then justice secretary’s “loyalties lie”.

However, the former Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy survived as Reform’s candidate to be mayor of Hampshire and the Solent.

An undercover ITV reporter who got a job as a Reform press officer recorded Ed Sumner, the director of communications, saying Parry would be sacked, but he was over-ruled by Farage.

Instead, the Reform leader said Parry should “apologise to Lammy... if David Lammy’s taken offence”.

Sumner told Farage: “You’re protecting him.”

Farage replies: “It’s showing a bit of sorrow ... trouble is he’s a Rear Admiral, that’s the problem.”

After Farage leaves, Sumner is recorded saying “if it was up to me, I’d have kicked him (Parry) out months ago”.

Parry was eventually ditched as a Reform candidate three months later after he compared a Jewish community group to “Islamists on horseback”.

Parry told ITV: “I would urge people to go back to the original contexts and tweets to see what was said and why. They related to reparations and failures by the police and government.

“They will see I always exercise my right to criticise anyone in power or the public eye, whom I judge to be acting against the interests of the British people.”

The latest revelations come a day after it was revealed that the same undercover ITV probe had recorded Reform councillors and candidates expressing “extreme” racist views.

One councillor described Asian families as “parasites” and saying the government should “stick them on planes and fuck them off to Pakistan”.

Labour chair Bridget Phillipson said: “These latest shocking and deeply disturbing revelations go right to the top of Reform UK.

“Nigel Farage needs to wake up and realise the buck stops with him. He also must urgently explain why he allegedly stood by a blatant racist instead of kicking him out of his party.

“Time and again Farage has had every opportunity to demonstrate leadership and get Reform’s house in order and every single time he has failed.

“In Reform’s own words: they’re defending the indefensible. They are completely unfit for office.”

In a statement, Reform accused ITV and Hardcash Productions of “extreme methods of deception”.

“They have infiltrated our workplace including commissioning an undercover journalist to provide altered identification documents, a false address, and false credentials so that they could be given access to Reform’s headquarters , computer systems, and spy on its employees,” the party said.

“That same journalist did not limit themselves to recording candid conversations in the workplace. That journalist also sought to find out sensitive security information, travel arrangements, and financial information outside of the scope of this investigation.

“ITV have failed to address this in correspondence despite this conduct being drawn to their attention. This is at a time when Nigel Farage and other members of Reform are being targeted by individuals who wished them harm and caused a security issue which was documented during the course of the undercover investigation.

“They have not included this in their report, despite being on notice since March this year. There is currently an on-going police investigation relating to security breaches against Mr Farage as is well known.

“There is no room for racism in Reform UK. We always respect due process of investigations and whilst these are ongoing it would not be appropriate to comment on individual cases.”

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