Farage says Starmer’s racism claims put Reform UK campaigners at risk

01 October 2025 , 07:55

779 0

Nigel Farage has accused Sir Keir Starmer of inciting violence against Reform UK MPs and campaigners by accusing him of racism.

The Reform UK leader said Sir Keir’s comments “will incite and encourage the radical Left” and claimed the Prime Minister had descended “into the gutter”.

He said Sir Keir should feel “ashamed” of his comments, which he called an “absolute disgrace” in the wake of the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk, the conservative US activist.

Meanwhile, David Lammy, the Deputy Prime Minister, was forced to retract comments he had made about Mr Farage flirting with the Hitler Youth as a boy.

Sir Keir and his ministers made a series of personal attacks on Mr Farage during the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, accusing him of racism after he announced a policy of revoking the right to remain in the UK for some migrants currently living here legally.

In his conference speech, the Prime Minister questioned whether Mr Farage and his party loved Britain.

Mr Farage responded by saying that by labelling his party’s policies as racist, “by implication, Reform supporters, Reform voters, Reform sympathisers are racist too.”

He said: “Yes, if you think we should patrol our borders, you are, by the definition of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, all racists... To accuse countless millions of being racist is a very, very low blow.

“This language will incite and encourage the radical left. I’m thinking of Antifa [Antifascist Action] and other organizations like that. It directly threatens the safety of our elected officials and our campaigners.

“And, frankly, in the wake of the Charlie Kirk murder, I think this is an absolute disgrace.”

Kirk, a right-wing political activist, was shot dead in the US earlier this month.

On Tuesday, Mr Lammy said Mr Farage was “someone who once flirted with Hitler Youth” in an apparent reference to allegations, which emerged in 2013, that Mr Farage sang Nazi songs as a schoolboy.

Mr Farage denied the allegations at the time, which stemmed from a 1981 letter reportedly written by his teacher claiming the schoolboy and others marched through a village “shouting Hitler Youth songs.”

Asked whether he thought Mr Farage was a racist, Mr Lammy told the BBC: “This is calling out his policies, his policies that would line people up who have a right to be in this country, who might be Indian, who might be Nigerian, and send them home. It’s not British. It doesn’t respect our values...

“I’m not going to play the man. I’m playing the ball, as our leader did. I will leave it for the public to come to their own judgments about someone who once flirted with Hitler Youth when he was younger.”

Hours later, Mr Lammy backtracked by saying: “He has denied it, and so I accept that he has denied it and I would like to clarify that position.”

Mr Farage also accused Sir Keir of not believing in the UK and claimed the Prime Minister was in “total denial over broken Britain”.

The Reform leader said the roads were “clogged” like never before, crime was “out of control” and it was impossible to book a GP appointment.

He added: “I thought the Matt cartoon on the front of today’s Telegraph summed the whole thing up rather perfectly. The sketch was two delegates leaving the Labour Party conference, one saying to the other ‘next year, we’re going to the Reform conference because they don’t talk about Nigel Farage all the time.’

“It has been obsessive, whether it’s the Home Secretary, whether it’s the Health Secretary. It is a constant attack on me and what I stand for and what we as Reform UK, a party that has led the opinion polls now for over 100 polls, stand for and believe in.”

Looking ahead to the local elections in May, he said: “Now, look, I’m not a vindictive person in any way at all. But Reform will teach Keir Starmer and the Labour Party a lesson next May, our equivalent of the mid-terms [...] We will teach Starmer a lesson next May that British political history will never forget.”

Speaking at a fringe event at the Labour conference, Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, said Mr Farage was “acting like the biggest snowflake” by expressing outrage at the attacks on him.