Nigel Farage is emboldening attacks on people of colour, according to broadcaster Sangita Myska, who was allegedly subjected to racial slurs by a Reform UK council leader. The party has expelled Ian Cooper, the former Staffordshire council leader, after he was accused of posting racist comments targeting Myska, Sadiq Khan, and others.
Myska, a veteran journalist who has presented for BBC and LBC, said she was told by Cooper that she was English "only in your dreams" because of her south Asian heritage. Cooper, a two-time Reform parliamentary candidate, has also been accused of calling London mayor Sadiq Khan a "narcissistic Pakistani" and of claiming migrants were "intent on colonising the UK".
Myska held Farage and the wider Reform UK leadership responsible for the culture that enabled such rhetoric. "Without a shadow of a doubt, Nigel Farage’s track record is emboldening party members and now elected councillors to express views that were once considered completely unacceptable," she said. She added that Farage, as chief executive of Reform UK, sets the culture.
The Labour MP for Tamworth, Sarah Edwards, described the social media posts as "deeply disturbing white supremacist views". Myska said the online hate had deepened as immigration dominated the political agenda, and that the environment became "unbelievably toxic" during the 2016 Brexit campaign. She said people of colour in public life faced daily racist abuse, and that Farage had shifted what is considered normal in UK politics.
Myska left LBC earlier this year. Farage has said he has never been racist or antisemitic with "malice", but faces mounting pressure after 28 school contemporaries alleged they witnessed racist or antisemitic behaviour by him at Dulwich College.
