UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Friday that he was deeply hurt and angered after being subjected to a racial slur by an activist of Nigel Farage’s right-wing populist Reform UK party.
The Reform UK member was caught on camera making racist remarks against the leader of the Conservative government, who is of Indian heritage. The incident was recorded, unknown to the activist, by Channel 4.
“My two daughters have to see and hear people from Reform UK, who are campaigning for Nigel Farage, call me an effing Paki.' It hurts. And it angers me,” Sunak said.
He added that Farage, a figurehead of British far-right politics, would need to “answer some questions on this matter.”
Sunak said he had repeated the slur deliberately because it was “too important not to clearly state what this is about.”
Activist Andrew Parker and another Reform UK campaign member were removed by Farage following the broadcast of the footage on Thursday evening.
The recording was obtained through an infiltration within the party’s team in Clacton-on-Sea, southeast England, where Farage is hoping to be elected at general elections on 4 July after failing seven times to secure a seat in the Commons.
According to anti-racist association Hope Not Hate, Reform UK has had to jettison 166 election candidates since the start of the year, due to racially offensive remarks made by many of them.