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”.
Sir Keir Starmer has said he believes her comments are an example of “shocking racism” that could “tear our country apart”.
“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…
