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General election live: ‘pattern of racist and misogynistic views’ within Reform UK, says Tory minister | General election 2024


Security minister Tom Tugendhat says there is a ‘pattern of racist and misogynistic views’ within Reform UK

Security minister Tom Tugendhat has been on the morning broadcast round this Saturday. In an interview with Times Radio, Tugendhat did not rule out a run at the Tory leadership if Rishi Sunak quits following the general election.

Asked if he wanted to be leader, he told Times Radio:

What I want to do is to make sure we’ve got a Conservative leader in this country and that’s why I’m supporting Rishi Sunak. Because the alternative with Keir Starmer, I’m afraid, is higher taxes, more regulation, worse growth and more unemployment.

What we need to do is to make sure that Conservatives across this country win their seats and that’s exactly what I’ve been focused on.”

Pressed again on the issue of what happens after the election, he said:

Well, we’ll deal with hypotheticals in a different way. I mean, the reality is Rishi Sunak is the candidate, there’s only two candidates for prime minister, there’s Rishi Sunak and there’s Sir Keir Starmer.

One of them is committed to lowering your taxes, protecting your borders and making a difference in everybody’s lives. The other, I’m afraid, is Sir Keir Starmer who is committed to raising your taxes, to making life a little bit harder for everybody and to lecturing you on how to live your life.”

During the same interview, Tugendhat said there was a “pattern of racist and misogynistic views” within Reform UK.

Security minister Tom Tugendhat has said there is a ‘pattern of racist and misogynistic views’ within Reform UK. Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

He told Times Radio:

There’s many decent people vote for every political party and there’s many decent people who will vote for Reform. But what we’re trying to do is to remind people, to try to make clear to people, what it is that Reform really is.

He said Nigel Farage has “clearly done almost no due diligence on who he’s asking to carry his message”.

“There is a real pattern of racist and misogynistic views in the party. I think it’s absolutely right to call it out,” he added.

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Key events

Revealed: how Sunak dropped smoking ban amid lobbying from tobacco firms

Rob Davies

Rob Davies

Rishi Sunak abandoned his “legacy” policy to ban smoking for future generations amid a backlash from the tobacco industry in the form of legal threats, lobbying and a charm offensive aimed at Conservative MPs, an investigation reveals.

The UK had been on course to become the first country to ban smoking for future generations, via the tobacco and vaping bill, which Downing Street hoped would help define Sunak’s place in British political history.

An investigation by the Guardian and the Examination, a non-profit newsroom that investigates global health threats, has uncovered how the UK’s largest cigarette companies fought against the policy, which would have raised the smoking age by one year every year.

After months of fierce opposition from the industry – and intervention from MPs and thinktanks with ties to tobacco firms – the proposal was excluded from the “wash-up” process, when outgoing governments choose which policies to fast-track and which to drop.

The policy, which in effect banned smoking for anyone born after 2009, was left out despite MPs having voted in favour of it.

Documents and freedom of information requests reveal how four of the world’s largest tobacco firms – the UK’s Imperial Brands and British American Tobacco (BAT), Japan Tobacco International (JTI) and US-headquartered Philip Morris International (PMI) – put ministers on notice of a legal backlash.

Imperial and BAT wrote to the health secretary, Victoria Atkins, in February, to claim the consultation process preceding legislation was “unlawful” because industry views had not been considered.

The Department of Health and Social Care has said it did not need to consider industry views, pointing to guidance included in a World Health Organization global treaty, signed by the UK, that says governments should form smoking policy without influence from cigarette companies.

You can read all about the investigation by Rob Davies and Matthew Chapman here:

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Shadow defence secretary John Healey says Nigel Farage ‘needs to get a grip of his own party’

Shadow defence secretary John Healey is also on the broadcast round this morning. In an interview with Sky News, Healey said Nigel Farage needed to “get a grip of his own party” and tackle racist and homophobic activists within Reform UK.

He told Sky News:

To some extent, I see him fuelling a row over this Channel 4 film to distract, really, from the fact that there are officials and there are candidates right at the heart of the Reform party, that have been responsible for racist, anti-gay, and other deeply offensive statements.

And it’s for Farage to take action on them. And in the end, the culture and the standards of any political party are set by the leader and Nigel Farage wants to be seen as a leader.

He needs to get a grip of his own party and he’s failing to do that at the moment.”

He compared the situation to the “very similar challenge” faced by Keir Starmer in tackling the “antisemitism that had been allowed to fester in parts of the Labour party”.

“He did that and that’s the responsibility of any leader of any political party,” said Healey.

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Security minister Tom Tugendhat says there is a ‘pattern of racist and misogynistic views’ within Reform UK

Security minister Tom Tugendhat has been on the morning broadcast round this Saturday. In an interview with Times Radio, Tugendhat did not rule out a run at the Tory leadership if Rishi Sunak quits following the general election.

Asked if he wanted to be leader, he told Times Radio:

What I want to do is to make sure we’ve got a Conservative leader in this country and that’s why I’m supporting Rishi Sunak. Because the alternative with Keir Starmer, I’m afraid, is higher taxes, more regulation, worse growth and more unemployment.

What we need to do is to make sure that Conservatives across this country win their seats and that’s exactly what I’ve been focused on.”

Pressed again on the issue of what happens after the election, he said:

Well, we’ll deal with hypotheticals in a different way. I mean, the reality is Rishi Sunak is the candidate, there’s only two candidates for prime minister, there’s Rishi Sunak and there’s Sir Keir Starmer.

One of them is committed to lowering your taxes, protecting your borders and making a difference in everybody’s lives. The other, I’m afraid, is Sir Keir Starmer who is committed to raising your taxes, to making life a little bit harder for everybody and to lecturing you on how to live your life.”

During the same interview, Tugendhat said there was a “pattern of racist and misogynistic views” within Reform UK.

Security minister Tom Tugendhat has said there is a ‘pattern of racist and misogynistic views’ within Reform UK. Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

He told Times Radio:

There’s many decent people vote for every political party and there’s many decent people who will vote for Reform. But what we’re trying to do is to remind people, to try to make clear to people, what it is that Reform really is.

He said Nigel Farage has “clearly done almost no due diligence on who he’s asking to carry his message”.

“There is a real pattern of racist and misogynistic views in the party. I think it’s absolutely right to call it out,” he added.

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Opening summary

Good morning, and welcome to our continued coverage of the 2024 general election campaign. It is the final weekend before voters go to the polls on Thursday 4 July.

Security minister Tom Tugendhat has said there is a “pattern of racist and misogynistic views” within Reform UK.

He told Times Radio:

There’s many decent people vote for every political party and there’s many decent people who will vote for Reform.

But what we’re trying to do is to remind people, to try to make clear to people, what it is that Reform really is.”

He said Nigel Farage has “clearly done almost no due diligence on who he’s asking to carry his message”.

“There is a real pattern of racist and misogynistic views in the party. I think it’s absolutely right to call it out,” he added.

Farage, meanwhile, has claimed that an activist in question, Andrew Parker, is an actor and that the clip was a fabrication. The Reform UK leader repeated his assertion that Channel 4’s footage was a “set up” during last night’s BBC Question Time. Earlier on Friday, he’d appeared on ITV’s Loose Women and said that the Parker incident was orchestrated to discredit his party.

In other news, here are some of the events we can expect politicians to be attending today, according to the PA news agency:

  • Rishi Sunak will be campaigning with an Armed Forces Day visit near Catterick in his Richmond and Northallerton constituency at 11am. This evening he’ll be at a community visit in Neasden, north west London.

  • Labour leader Keir Starmer and shadow defence secretary John Healey will join veterans in the Aldershot, Hampshire, at a coffee morning to mark Armed Forces Day at 9am. In the evening, Starmer will speak at a major event in London after speeches from deputy leader Angela Rayner.

  • Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey will be out campaigning in Scotland, with a tour that’ll take in Fife, Edinburgh and East Dunbartonshire.

  • Northern Ireland secretary of state Chris Heaton-Harris will address the Tory manifesto launch event in Belfast.

It is Amy Sedghi here today. If you want to get my attention then please do email me on amy.sedghi@theguardian.com. I will take a look at comments below the line (BTL) but won’t be able to read them all, so the quickest way to point out any error or omissions is to email me.

Also, please note that comments will not be open on the blog until 10am.

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