David Lammy started talking about Hitler when he was asked whether he thought Nigel Farage was a racist on the BBC this afternoon. Mr Lammy reasserted that Labour thinks the Reform UK’s vow to end indefinite leave to remain and deport people in the UK without a citizenship racist “because it is”. He added: “There will be many people listening to this programme, who live in streets where people have not got full citizenship, but they’ve got a right to remain. That means the process by which they came to this country has found to be correct.
“They are from a part of Asia, they are from a part of Africa. Nigel Farage would send them home. That, I’m afraid, is discriminatory; it is racist.” When asked to answer with either a yes or no, as to whether he believes the Reform UK leader is a racist, the Deputy Prime Minister said: “I answered your question. I’m not going to play the man, I’m playing the ball, as our leader did.
“I will leave it for the public to come to their own judgements about someone who once flirted with the Hitler Youth when he was younger.”
He added: “That is for the public.
“But we will be absolutely clear about the policy before the British people in the years ahead, as we head towards a general election.”
In 2013, Channel 4 obtained a letter written in June 1981 by a young English teacher, Chloe Deakin, at Dulwich College in south London asking the master of the college, David Emms, tochange his decision to appoint a young Farage as a prefect.
“This master stated his view that this behaviour was precisely why the boy should not be made a prefect.
“Yet another colleague described how, at a Combined Cadet Force (CCF) camp organised by the college, Farage and others had marched through a quiet Sussex village very late at night shouting Hitler-youth songs.”
Sir Keir Starmer said in his conference speech this aftertoon that there is “a moral line, and it isn’t just Farage who crosses it”.
He added: “Controlling migration is a reasonable goal.
“But if you throw bricks and smash up private property that’s not legitimate – that’s thuggery.”
Free speech was a “British value” but did not allow people to “incite racist violence and hatred”, the prime minister said.
He also stated that “this party is proud of our flags”, but “if they are painted alongside graffiti telling a Chinese takeaway owner to ‘go home’, that’s not pride – that’s racism”.
Anyone who argues that “people who have lived here for generations” should now be deported is “an enemy of national renewal”, the prime minister added.
Nigel Farage said Sir Keir’s branding of Reform plans as racist “will incite and encourage the radical left”, “directly threatens the safety” of campaigners and is an “absolute disgrace” in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder.
