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Reform’s new housing chief has been sacked over his comments about Grenfell Tower fire victims, which survivors and families called “deeply dehumanising”.
Sir Keir Starmer and opposition parties had called for Simon Dudley to be sacked as Reform’s new housing spokesman after he said the 72 deaths were a “tragedy and a failure” but “everyone dies in the end”.
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Reform leader Mr Farage revealed on Thursday morning Mr Dudley had been sacked, adding: “He’s no longer a spokesman for the party.”
Mr Farage added that his comments were “frankly rather shocking to many people”.
An inquiry into the 2017 blaze in west London found the deaths were avoidable and preventable, while safety concerns were regularly ignored by local and national politicians.
Grenfell United, which represents some of the survivors and bereaved, said in a statement on Thursday: “Our loved ones did not simply ‘die.’ They were failed.
“They were trapped in their homes, in a building that should have been safe, in a fire that should never have happened. Reducing their deaths to an inevitability strips away the truth: this was preventable.
“To speak about Grenfell in this way is to erase responsibility. It suggests this was just fate, just ‘how it goes,’ rather than the result of years of ignored warnings, poor decisions, and a failure to value the lives of residents, and is deeply offensive and ill-informed.
“Everyone deserves the right to a safe home. But this attitude clearly shows Simon Dudley is not the man to ensure that happens.”
In an interview with industry magazine Inside Housing, published on Wednesday, Mr Dudley said the building safety regulations introduced after the Grenfell fire were not working.
“That was a tragedy, it was…
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