Reform UK has withdrawn support from three of its candidates over offensive comments they have made, the party has confirmed.
Nigel Farage’s party is no longer backing Edward Oakenfull, Robert Lomas, and Leslie Lilley – who were all previously standing for Reform.
It comes after leader Nigel Farage disowned the candidates during a much-anticipated appearance on the BBC Question Time special at the Midlands Arts Centre in Birmingham yesterday, when their remarks were put to him.
Mr Farage told the programme: ‘I want nothing to do with them.’
Nigel Farage ‘s party is no longer backing Edward Oakenfull, Robert Lomas, and Leslie Lilley – who were all previously candidates for Reform
Mr Oakenfull, who is standing in Derbyshire Dales, posted on X that ‘importing loads of sub-Saharan Africans plus Muslims that inter-breed’ had created a ‘gene pool decline’
Mr Oakenfull, who is standing in Derbyshire Dales, posted on X that ‘importing loads of sub-Saharan Africans plus Muslims that inter-breed’ had created a ‘gene pool decline’.
In another post he said that ‘importing sub-Saharan Africans’ would ‘dilute the IQ of our country’, which he told the BBC was ‘taken out of context’.
Meanwhile, Mr Lomas allegedly said black people should ‘get off [their] lazy arses’ and stop acting ‘like savages’.
Ms Lilley, who is running for the party in Southend East and Rochford, is accused of describing people arriving on small boats as ‘scum’.
In a post in June 2020 he commented on the arrival of a small boat in Dover, saying: ‘I hope I’m near one of these scumbags one day. I won’t run away, I’ll slaughter them then have their family taken out.’
Within weeks he posted again, railing against ‘more scum’ entering the UK.
‘I hope your family get robbed, beaten or attacked’, he added, according to The Times.
Mr Lilley also suggested that razor wire should be carried by Border Force guards to tear the boats making the dangerous journey across the Channel.
In another concerning post, he commented ‘gas’ alongside laughing emojis under a video of Muslims praying, the newspaper said.
The 70-year-old also claimed that the Covid-19 pandemic was a plan to ‘depopulate the world’ and was ‘mass murder by government’.
Robert Lomas, in Barnsley North, reportedly said that ‘black people of Britain’ were ‘grifting the race card’ and should ‘get up off your lazy arses’ and stop acting ‘like savages’
Leslie Lilley, who is running for the Reform party in Southend East and Rochford, said he would ‘slaughter’ migrants arriving on small boats and have their families ‘taken out’
He is one of 41 Reform candidates who are ‘friends’ on Facebook with the fascist leader Gary Raikes.
Raikes is a former organiser for the British National Party and heads the New British Union, modelled on Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists.
The candidates will remain on the ballot paper, but are no longer endorsed by Reform UK.
This comes after the Reform UK leader came under heavy fire over comments made by Reform activist Andrew Parker.
Mr Parker was recorded calling the Prime Minister ‘a f***ing p***’ as he canvassed in Clacton-on-Sea in Essex by Channel 4.
The 63-year-old was also filmed saying that Reform would turn all mosques into Weatherspoons pubs and suggested asylum seekers who try to come to Kent from France on small boats should be shot on the beach by young British Army recruits as ‘target practice’.
Andrew Parker, who works as an actor, was filmed calling the Prime Minister ‘a f***ing p***’ as he canvassed in Clacton-on-Sea in Essex
But today Mr Parker, a divorced father of one, from Bishop Stortford, Herts, who is a part time actor, refused when asked three times if he had been paid to infiltrate Reform UK to make their volunteers appear racist.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Mr Parker said he’d been set up by Channel – but added: ‘I’m not going to say anything, I think the best thing I can do is not say anything at all.
‘I’m getting phone calls non-stop and it’s making me ill to be honest and it’s not fair on me. It’s really causing me a lot of stress and I really can’t stand much more.
‘I was set-up, it’s as simple as that, the guy was laughing and joking with it all the time.
‘He pretended to be part of the Reform campaign team. It was just a joke and it’s become ridiculous,
‘We were having laughs and jokes – like blokes do have laughs and jokes – that was it really. I feel a bit of a fool, but I’m not used to this media stuff.’
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has since reported Channel 4 to the elections watchdog, claiming the broadcaster used an actor as a ‘plant’ in its undercover investigation into his campaign.
The broadcaster has denied that Andrew Parker, who was filmed using a racial slur to describe Rishi Sunak, was paid by or known to Channel 4 News before the expose on Mr Farage’s General Election campaign in the constituency of Clacton.
But Reform, in a letter to the Electoral Commission, said it was ‘wholly unbelievable’ for it to be a coincidence and Channel 4’s piece ‘cannot be described as anything short of election interference’.
Separately, Mr Farage is embroiled in a dispute with the BBC, claiming the audience for Friday’s Question Time special was ‘rigged’ and refusing to appear on the flagship Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show unless the corporation apologises.