Warning: This report contains racist and offensive language. Nigel Farage has insisted Reform UK does not have an issue with vetting, after ITV News broadcast undercover filming of some of its councillors and candidates using racist, violent and sexist language. The Reform leader told BBC Look East his party vetted "to a much higher standard than other parties" but "you can't vet for future comments".
In the film, Undercover: A Year in Reform, external, a Reform councillor and deputy mayor of Solihull is recorded calling Asian homeowners "parasites". ITV's filming, gathered over a year, involved eight figures in Reform – the BBC does not know how many it spoke to in total. Reform says the people filmed by ITV are all under investigation, and have already either resigned or been suspended.
Two years ago, Farage vowed to root out "bad apples" among Reform's candidates, saying "bigots" and "extremists" were not welcome. Defending the party's vetting processes, Farage told BBC Look East: "You can't vet for future comments. You can look at someone's CV.
You can look at someone's social media... "I can't predict what they're going to say after a drink, when they're being provoked by somebody or egged on to say something." Pressed over whether the party had an issue with vetting, he said: "No, not at all. We actually vet to a much higher standard than the other parties." He insisted "appropriate action" would be taken following the broadcast, but added: "I'm promising you, however heavily you vet, you cannot stop what people say in the future." ITV News says it had reporters undercover with Reform UK candidates and councillors across England and Wales running up to the elections in May and four by-election campaigns this year and last.
These reporters joined a Reform councillor, Alan Feeney, in Solihull, in the West Midlands, where he was campaigning to retain his seat on the council, after defecting from the Conservative Party in 2025. Feeney, Solihull's deputy mayor, told undercover reporters the area has been "infested" with Asian families, and called them "absolute parasites". Later in the film, he is recorded saying: "I'd be saying no more than 1% of British population can be non-white." Farage said "the most egregious case" in ITV's filming was "somebody who is a long-term Conservative councillor", in an apparent reference to Feeney.
He said "anyone who says stuff like that" was "not welcome". The Reform UK leader added: "But I promise you, if an undercover investigation spoke to hundreds of Labour councillors or Conservative councillors or however many hundreds they spoke to, and you provoke people, you'll find unsavoury things said by all parties." Bigots not welcome in Reform UK, says Nigel Farage Reform candidate defects to Tories over racism row On a different day in the ITV broadcast, Feeney is joined by two other Reform candidates, Jamie Campbell and Chris Whelan, who discuss speculation of a mosque being built in the local area. "There's got to be a way of stopping them - like, go and buy some pork chops; we'll bury it in the ground," Campbell is heard saying in the film.
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