Nigel Farage warns sectarian voting in England is ‘very dangerous’
Sectarian voting in England is “very dangerous”, Nigel Farage has warned after a general election in which pro-Palestinian MPs effectively became the sixth-largest party.
The Reform UK leader claimed record levels of net migration had led to groups that had “completely different sets of priorities” casting their ballots along religious lines.
Independent MPs Shockat Adam, Ayoub Khan, Adnan Hussain and Iqbal Mohamed all entered the Commons after running on pro-Gaza platforms on July 4.
Speaking to Camilla Tominey and Kamal Ahmed on The Telegraph’s The Daily T podcast, Mr Farage said: “The argument here is if you get your immigration policies wrong, you finish up not just with divided communities, but with large groupings of people with completely different sets of priorities, and that extends now into sectarian voting.
“I’d never seen sectarian voting in my lifetime, not in England anyway. So these things are all very dangerous and very bad.”
In the run-up to the general election, a new pressure group called The Muslim Vote urged Muslim voters to back pro-Palestinian candidates and “punish” sitting MPs it deemed insufficiently supportive.
Mr Farage was also asked about his claim that a mass riot in Leeds last week represented the “politics of the subcontinent”, which prompted a backlash from local Labour MPs.
The Harehills area of the city was marred by violence last Thursday after police and social services “removed” children from a home belonging to a Romanian Roma family.
Challenged on what he meant by his remarks, Mr Farage replied: “The racist hatreds between the different tribes and religions.
“We have a growing problem in this country, in many of our cities, in many of our towns – particularly in the North West and Yorkshire, where the centres of towns are frankly unrecognisable. You wouldn’t even know you were in England.”
His newest comments are likely to prompt further criticism following his claims during the election that Rishi Sunak did not understand “our culture” amid the D-Day row.
Mr Farage went on to reveal he had not been able to use public transport in more than a decade owing to fears for his personal safety.
On the campaign trail, he was hit by a milkshake during a walkabout in Clacton, before objects were thrown at him on a visit to Yorkshire a week later.
“Most of the attacks on me you don’t see – there was one Wednesday week back,” he said.
“A drink [was] thrown at me but, you know, I don’t advertise all these things. I haven’t caught public transport since 2013. I wish that wasn’t the case but it just is.”
Mr Farage added that those who wished to harm him were not all “terrible people” but were “detached from reality” and believed violence against him was “justified” because of his views.
The Reform leader also reflected on race rows involving his party’s candidates in the run-up to the election, which he said had likely deterred hundreds of thousands of voters.
“I think to be honest with you, there were some pretty catastrophic failures in terms of candidates we had, and I didn’t quite know what I was picking up and running with to be honest.
“And that damaged us and that hurt, that did hurt us by a few per cent. Of course it did.”
Reform has threatened legal action against a vetting firm run by a former Tory adviser, which blamed the timing of the election for its inability to weed out candidates with extremist views.
‘I couldn’t care less’
Asked about the future of the Tory Party ahead of the upcoming leadership election, with Rishi Sunak’s successor to be unveiled in November, Mr Farage said: “I couldn’t care less.
“I’m really not interested. I think it’ll make little difference in the short term… We’re after Labour votes now.
“I think the early stages of a party like ours, it was disaffected Conservatives. I think as time goes by, it’s the Labour vote we will be after and interested in. I mean, even Tony Blair is saying Labour must think about Reform. So I think you’ll be surprised.”
Mr Farage’s party came second in 98 seats, of which 89 were won by Labour.
In the wake of Sir Keir Starmer’s landslide victory, Sir Tony Blair insisted the Government must adopt a tough stance on migration and crime to curb the growth of Reform in the future.
As he took tea at the start of the podcast, Mr Farage also revealed he once drank champagne with the late Elizabeth II – and claimed Prince Philip agreed with him on the EU.
“I did drink champagne with the Queen once, our late wonderful Queen, and that was a quite magnificent experience…
“It was pre-dinner drinks, you know, you weren’t staying for dinner. But it was very interesting, because you’d file through, and, you know, ‘good evening, ma’am’.
“And then you’d speak to Philip, who’d make a comment about the European Union, which I’d agree with totally.”