Nigel Farage has said he is “unhappy” with his MP, Sarah Pochin, for making comments that have been widely condemned as racist.
The Reform UK leader was asked to give his view on Ms Pochin after she told a viewer on Talk TV that it “drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people”.
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Ms Pochin, the MP for Runcorn and Helsby, said such adverts did not “reflect our society” and added: “I feel that your average white person, average white family is… not represented any more.”
She has since apologised for her remarks and said they were “poorly phrased”.
However, she said the point she was trying to make was that advertising had gone “DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] mad” and adverts were now “unrepresentative of British society as a whole”.
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Sir Keir Starmer has said he believes her comments are an example of “shocking racism” that could “tear our country apart”.
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“It tells you everything about Reform,” the prime minister told the BBC.
“Nigel Farage has got some questions to answer because either he doesn’t consider it racist, which in my view is shocking in itself, or he does think it’s racist and he’s shown absolutely no leadership.
“I’m the prime minister of the whole of our country – our reasonable, tolerant, diverse country – and I want to serve the whole country. He can’t even call out racism.”
Speaking at a press conference in Westminster, Mr Farage said Ms Pochin’s suggestion that there were too many black and Asian people in adverts was “ugly” and “taken on their own could be read to be very, very unpleasant indeed”.
“I am unhappy with what she has done,” he said.
However, he echoed previous comments made by Zia Yusuf, Reform’s head of policy, who said her comments had to be “put into context” and people must be able to “talk about” representation in television advertising.
Mr Farage agreed, saying Ms Pochin’s comments came in the context of “DEI madness” and were not “racist”.
He added: “I understand the basic point, but the way she put it, the way she worded it, was wrong and was ugly, and if I thought that the intention behind it was racist, I would have taken a lot more action than I have to date.”
Mr Farage was speaking during a press conference in Westminster in which he said parliament needed to “step up” and form a commission to intervene in the grooming gang scandal.
He was joined by child sexual abuse survivor Ellie-Ann Reynolds, who resigned from the inquiry’s victims and survivors liaison panel over concerns that racial and religious motivations were being downplayed.
It comes as the inquiry established by the government faces pressure after a group of survivors quit the inquiry and said they would only rejoin it on the condition that safeguarding minister Jess Phillips resigned.
Ms Phillips is facing calls to resign after she was accused of trying to expand the inquiry’s scope beyond grooming gangs.
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A separate group of survivors wrote to the prime minister to say they will only continue to work with the inquiry if Ms Phillips remains in post.
Sir Keir has defended Ms Phillips, saying he had “confidence” in her and she had “devoted” her life to tackling violence against women and girls.
He has also written to some of the survivors asking them to rejoin the inquiry.
Appearing at a press conference in central London, the Reform UK leader said he would be speaking to Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle and would write to the Home Affairs Select Committee about parliament using its “extraordinary powers” to investigate the scandal.
He suggested both the House of Lords and the House of Commons could be involved in a “commission”.
“Here is the most enormous opportunity for parliament, and indeed for this government, to restore some public trust in the institution and those that currently inhabit it on an issue that has been gnawing away at our public consciences for well over a decade,” he said.
