Nigel Farage has said he is “very unhappy” with Sarah Pochin’s “ugly” comment as a grooming gangs survivor slammed the media for double standards.
Ms Pochin had said “it drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people” before apologising and saying her comments were “phrased poorly”.
Speaking at a press conference this afternoon, Mr Farage said: “I am unhappy with what she has done.”
He added the comments came in the context of “DEI madness”.
Mr Farage added: “I understand the basic point, but the way she put it, the way she worded it, was wrong and was ugly, and if I thought that the intention behind it was racist, I would have taken a lot more action than I have to date.”
Grooming gangs survivor Ellie Reynolds, who joined the Reform leader at the press conference, pointed out a double standard from the media in response to a question about Ms Pochin.
She said: “I find it quite overwhelming that every single one of these media [outlets] have said something about a comment that was made by Sarah which is understandable – absolutely fine.
“Yet it has taken media decades to recognise grooming gangs that are coming over and raping our children because they are white. That is also racially motivated and it is racist.”
Grooming gangs survivor slams media for Sarah Pochin double standards
Speaking alongside Nigel Farage at this afternoon’s press conference, grooming gangs survivor Ellie Reynolds said: “I find it quite overwhelming that every single one of these media [outlets] have said something about a comment that was made by Sarah which is understandable – absolutely fine.
“Yet it has taken media decades to recognise grooming gangs that are coming over and raping our children because they are white. That is also racially motivated and it is racist.”
Reform leader ‘very unhappy’ with Sarah Pochin’s ‘ugly’ comment
Sarah 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”, Nigel Farage has said.
“I am unhappy with what she has done,” Mr Farage told a press conference.
He added the comments came in the context of “DEI madness”.
Mr Farage added: “I understand the basic point, but the way she put it, the way she worded it, was wrong and was ugly, and if I thought that the intention behind it was racist, I would have taken a lot more action than I have to date.”
Time for Parliament to ‘step up’ and intervene in grooming gang scandal – Nigel Farage
It is time for Parliament to “step up” and intervene in the grooming gang scandal, Nigel Farage has said.
The Reform UK leader said he would be speaking to Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle and would write to the Home Affairs Select Committee about Parliament using its “extraordinary powers” to investigate the grooming gangs scandal.
He suggested both the House of Lords and the House of Commons could be involved in a “commission”.
Mr Farage said: “I am saying, here is the most enormous opportunity for Parliament, and indeed for this Government, to restore some public trust in the institution and those that currently inhabit it on an issue that has been gnawing away at our public consciences for well over a decade.
“I will be with my colleagues meeting the Speaker this evening, I will put these points to him.
“I know that he himself is very keen to re-establish Parliament at the centre of our national debate in this country.
“I will tomorrow write to Dame Karen Bradley, the chair of the Home Affairs committee, suggesting very quickly a sub-committee is set up.
“The advantages of this – the first one is it can be done incredibly quickly.
“The second of this, is it will take place in what we still know as the mother of Parliaments and perhaps re-establish some trust in the institution and it will happen in the full glare of the media and it won’t take years to complete.”
Inquiry was ‘rigged from the start’, says survivor
Former grooming gangs survivor Ellie Reynolds said: “We almost felt uncomfortable vocalising the ethnicity of these men.
“Pretty much when we were in that inquiry we were stripped of our voices.”
She added that the inquiry was “rigged from the start” and made reference to former police officer Jim Gamble and former social worker Annie Hudson, who were previously announced as candidates to chair the inquiry.
Ms Reynolds concluded her speech by saying the inquiry was “corrupt”.
Inquiry was ‘mess from the start’ – grooming gangs survivor
Ellie Reynolds has said the grooming gangs survivor was a ‘mess from the start’
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Speaking at the press conference, Ellie Reynolds said: “The inquiry that was set up was a mess from the start.
“When I joined the panel we knew from the get-go that it was messy.
“It was a very controlling atmosphere there it was very gaslighting, very manipulative.
We all went on to do the right thing and that was to seek justice, find the truth, to not be silenced anymore and to be able to help our future.
“The way that we were spoken to was very degrading, it was very controlling.”
Nigel Farage: ‘Grooming gangs inquiry is flawed’
Nigel Farage has described the grooming gangs inquiry as “flawed”.
He said: “The inquiry is flawed, the inquiry will not work and we want today to offer a better solution.”
He introduced survivor Ellie Reynolds, who is one of five to have withdrawn from the inquiry.
Nigel Farage says he was in ‘disbelief’ when he first learned of Rotherham grooming gang in 2013
Nigel Farage said he was in ‘disbelief’ when he first learned of the Rotherham grooming gang scandal
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Nigel Farage is speaking at a press conference about the grooming gangs inquiry.
He said he first became aware of the scale of grooming gangs on a visit to Rotherham in 2013.
The Reform UK leader said: “I have to say, initially I looked upon it all with a degree of disbelief. surely nothing as large as this, nothing as appalling as this, could have happened on this scale without it breaking as a massive public story.”
Kemi Badenoch delivers verdict on accidental release of migrant sex offender: ‘I was shocked at the sheer levels of incompetence’
Kemi Badenoch said she was ‘shocked at the sheer levels of incompetence’ after Hadush Kebatu was wrongly released from prison
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Kemi Badenoch has said she was “absolutely shocked” at the “sheer levels of incompetence” following Hadush Kebatu’s accidental release from prison.
The Tory leader said: “This is a man who should have been deported immediately.
“That is now Conservative policy – all foreign criminals [face] immediate deportation. We don’t want them in our country.”
Downing Street has said Kebatu will be deported “imminently”.
Nigel Farage faces calls to remove whip from Reform MP
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is facing calls to suspend Sarah Pochin
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Nigel Farage is facing calls to suspend a Reform UK MP who said “it drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people”.
Labour has written to the party leader asking him to “urgently clarify” whether he endorses the comments made by Sarah Pochin, while the Liberal Democrats have said she must have the whip withdrawn.
Ms Pochin, who became the Reform MP for Runcorn and Helsby after a by-election earlier this year, has said her remarks on Sunday were “phrased poorly” and apologised for any offence caused.
But in a letter to Mr Farage, who is yet to comment publicly on the row, Labour chairwoman Anna Turley said the remarks were “racist” and “your silence is deafening”.
“Do you endorse Sarah Pochin’s comments? And can you confirm if her views on race are welcome in Reform UK?” she wrote on Monday.
“Saying that seeing black and Asian people in TV adverts ‘drives me mad’ is racist. You have the power to withdraw the Reform UK whip from Sarah Pochin. You should do it today.”
Nigel Farage to ‘offer a solution to failing grooming gangs inquiry’ in live address
Nigel Farage has said he will “offer a solution to the failing grooming gangs inquiry” in a live press conference today.
The Reform UK leader is set to deliver the address at 2pm.
Companies that donated to Labour were awarded £138m in contracts
Companies that donated to Labour were awarded £138million in contracts during the party’s first year in power, a new report has shown.
The study by research group The Autonomy Institute investigated the link between donations from private businesses to major political parties in Britain and the awarding of public sector contracts.
It found over the last 25 years, £47million has been donated by companies who have received public contracts in return, totalling £60billion.
The report showed that eight companies which had donated over £580,000 to the Labour Party were awarded contracts worth just under £138million within two years of their contribution, between July 2024 and June 2025.
Tax and spending changes being considered ahead of Budget – Rachel Reeves suggests on visit to Saudi Arabia
Tax and spending changes are being considered ahead of next month’s Budget, Rachel Reeves has suggested.
In an indication that some form of tax rises could be on the table, the Chancellor indicated the Government needed to ensure there was “sufficient headroom” above its spending plans and that its fiscal rules are met.
The Chancellor also suggested she was “confident” a trade deal with the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) could be finalised, as she spoke at Fortune Magazine’s global forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Ms Reeves has previously insisted that Labour’s manifesto commitment not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT “stands” when questioned about how she will bridge a fiscal black hole in November.
WATCH: Steve Reed calls accidental release of migrant from prison ‘catastrophic’
Steve Reed has called the accidental release from prison of a migrant who sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl “catastrophic”.
The Housing Secretary said Justice Secretary David Lammy is expected to raise the matter in the Commons today.
“It’s catastrophic,” Mr Reed told GB News.
“David Lammy will be answering questions in the Commons today and he will be announcing the new checks that would be put in place to make sure this kind of thing cannot happen again.”
When told prison officers have raised concerns they do not have capacity for additional checks, Mr Reed said: “When the Justice Secretary stands up in the Commons and tells them they will carry out these checks to stop accidental releases, they will follow his orders.
“We will not tolerate this as a Government or as a country, seeing convicted criminals set loose by accident.
“Absolutely unacceptable.”
Kemi Badenoch says asylum hotels could be shut quickly if PM ‘had the backbone’
Kemi Badenoch has spoken out after a report found billions of pounds of taxpayer money had been “wasted” on the asylum hotel system.
The Tory leader wrote to X: “Every asylum hotel could be closed quickly if Keir Starmer had the backbone to take difficult decisions.
“Only the Conservatives have a serious plan to: Leave the ECHR, establish a third country deterrent like Rwanda, create a Removals Force, deport every illegal arrival within a week.
“Only by having a real plan and the team to deliver that plan, will we ever get a grip on the immigration system and end asylum hotels once and for all.”
Housing Secretary brands criminal justice system ‘broken’ after asylum seeker mistakenly released from prison
Steve Reed has said the criminal justice system needs to be ‘rebuilt from the bottom up’
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Housing Secretary Steve Reed has said the criminal justice system needs to be “rebuilt from the bottom up” after the accidental release of Hadush Kebatu from prison.
Mr Reed said the debacle was a sign of a “broken” justice system.
“It wasn’t that he made an escape bid: he was released in a way that should not have happened,” he told Sky News.
“Now, that is a sign, isn’t it, of a broken criminal justice system.
“But we know that, because when we were elected, the prisons were full up. There wasn’t room to house people who have got custodial sentences in the courts.”
David Lammy faces backlash from prison governors after ordering strengthening of release checks on inmates
David Lammy is facing backlash from prison chiefs after ordering the “immediate strengthening” of checks on inmates upon their release.
The Justice Secretary announced plans for the new checks after Hadush Kebatu, an asylum seeker jailed for the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl, was wrongly freed from HMP Chelmsford on Friday morning instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre.
According to The Telegraph, one prison governor said: “I understand the Government is very eager to prevent this from happening again, but there’s an investigation which has only just been commissioned.
“Until that’s under way, the prison service won’t know what went wrong or whether the proposed checks are what are needed to prevent it happening again.”
Another prison chief said it may be a “knee-jerk reaction” to prove to the public that the Government was taking action following the incident.
Officials at centre of collapsed China spy case to appear before parliamentary inquiry
Christopher Berry and Christopher Cash both denied charges under the Official Secrets Act
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Senior officials at the heart of the collapsed China spying case will appear before a parliamentary inquiry today.
Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson took the decision to drop the case, blaming the evidence from deputy national security adviser (DNSA) Matt Collins for not demonstrating that China posed a threat to national security.
Both men will give evidence to MPs and peers on the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy (JCNSS) this afternoon.
The collapse of the case against Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry – who both denied charges under the Official Secrets Act – has triggered a Westminster blame game.
The Conservatives have accused Sir Keir Starmer of deliberately collapsing the case to avoid damaging relations with Beijing while the Prime Minister has said the prosecution had to be based on the Tory position – which did not describe China as a threat – at the time of the alleged offences.
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