Undercover: A Year in Reform,, external<\/a> a Reform councillor and deputy mayor of Solihull is recorded calling Asian homeowners “parasites”.<\/p>\nLabour described the investigation as “truly sickening” adding: “Nigel Farage can’t shrug these latest revelations off as being a few bad apples.”<\/p>\n
A Reform spokesman said: “Where members, activists and councillors have clearly behaved inappropriately, investigations have commenced” and that in some cases there had been suspensions.<\/p>\n
The spokesman added that the party had improved its procedures but some individuals who did not share their values would occasionally make it through vetting.<\/p>\n
ITV’s filming involved eight figures in Reform \u2013 the BBC does not know how many it spoke to in total. <\/p>\n
Reform says the people filmed by ITV are all under investigation, and have already either resigned or been suspended.<\/p>\n
ITV News says it had reporters undercover with Reform UK candidates and councillors across England and Wales running up to the elections in May and four by-election campaigns this year and last.<\/p>\n
These reporters joined a Reform councillor, Alan Feeney, in Solihull, in the West Midlands, where he was campaigning to retain his seat on the council, having defected from the Conservative Party in 2025.<\/p>\n
He told undercover reporters the area has been “infested” with Asian families, and called them “absolute parasites”. <\/p>\n
Later in the film, he is recorded saying: “I’d be saying no more than one per cent of British population can be non-white.”<\/p>\n
The BBC has tried to contact Feeney for a response. ITV has reported that on Monday evening he had “mutually agreed” to resign from Reform UK, citing “personal reasons,” and would be continuing as an independent councillor.<\/p>\n
Reform Party leader Nigel Farage has repeatedly said he wants to get rid of those he has called “bad apples.” <\/p>\n
Two years ago he said he didn’t want Reform to be “a sectarian or racially based party in any way at all”. <\/p>\n
“I’m going to be absolutely ruthless about it,” he said.<\/p>\n
In a statement released after ITV’s film was broadcast, Reform said the party “had improved and prioritised its vetting procedures, but from time to time, a handful of individuals who do not share our values will initially make it through vetting”. <\/p>\n
The Conservatives said: “Nigel Farage promised to make Reform ready for government. These sorry individuals are proof he has failed.”<\/p>\n
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: “This is chilling. I feel for anyone watching this tonight who is frightened to see such racism and hatred festering in their community.”<\/p>\n
A Green Party spokesman said: “Vilifying migrants and Muslims is Reform’s main focus, and these racist comments reflect party policy.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warning: This report contains racist and offensive language. Reform UK has said “there is no room for racism”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-803071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}