‘That seems to me to be completely illogical from Nigel Farage’
Nigel Farage has finally responded to Reform MP Sarah Pochin’s comments that it “drives her mad” seeing Black and Asian people in adverts.
During a press conference yesterday afternoon, Farage said that Pochin’s remarks were “ugly” but refused to call them racist.
He said: “Taken on their own they could be read to be very very unpleasant indeed.”
Farage added: “I am unhappy with what she has done, I can’t underestimate that and she fully knows how I feel.”
The Reform leader then defended Pochin’s comments, saying: “But it was in the broader context of DEI (diversity equity and inclusion) madness in the advertising industry, something which anybody with half a brain can recognise has been going on since about 2021.”
He said “I understand the basic point but the way she put it was wrong and was ugly.”
Farage claimed “If I thought the intention behind it was racist, then I would have taken a lot more action than I have to date and that is because I don’t.”
On LBC, Natasha Clark and Andrew Marr questioned Farage’s response to Pochin’s comments.
Clark said she asked Farage: “You say that Sarah Pochin didn’t intend to be racist with her comments. Does that mean she and her comments were not racist?
“He essentially told me ‘yes’, that is the case.”
Marr questioned that reasoning: “So if you don’t mean to be racist, you can’t be racist?”.
Clark replied: “That seems to me to be completely illogical from Nigel Farage, because if that were the case then I don’t think a lot of people who say racist things will be considered racist at all.”
An X user said: “The reason why Nigel Farage has not sacked Sarah Pochin from Reform over her racism is because he agrees with her…”
In May 2014 when he was UKIP leader, Farage came under fire for making ‘racist’ comments about Romanians.
He said he would be concerned if a group of Romanian men moved in next door.
LBC’s James O’Brien asked him what the difference would be between a group of Romanian men living next door and German children.
Farage replied: “You know what the difference is.”
Farage later said that regretted his form of words but said there was a “real problem” of Romanian criminality.
At the time, Ed Miliband condemned Farage’s ‘racial slur’. Yvette Cooper, Diane Abbott and David Lammy called his comments racist.
In a full-page advert in The Telegraph, UKIP warned about the risk posed by organised criminal gangs from Romania.
Farage wrongly claimed that 7% of all crimes in the EU were committed by Romanian gangs. In reality, according to Europol, Romanians accounted for 7% of organised criminal networks, not total offences.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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