Nigel Farage has run multiple political parties which have sought to demonise migrants. This began with UKIP, which was followed by the Brexit Party, which morphed into Reform UK.
Said parties have generally focussed on recent and first generation migrants, whether it was the Polish EU workers demonised by UKIP, or the refugees hounded by Reform UK. Farage himself would tell you he doesn’t have a problem with people of other ethnicities or cultures; his problem is with Britain losing its character (a character he refuses to acknowledge has never been static, and has notably been shaped by constant migratory influxes from the Romans onwards).
In politics, a ‘dog whistle’ is when a politician says one thing understanding their supporters will hear something else. In his case, Farage talks about ‘immigrants’ but his supporters think ‘Muslims’ or ‘Blacks’.
The problem for Farage is that he wants to replace the Tories as the ‘big tent’ party of the British right; i.e. he wants to appeal to both diehard racists and liberal conservatives (with the latter being people who are racist in many senses, but aren’t solely driven by hatred).
This is why we’re now seeing confusing stuff like the following:
NEW: Nigel Farage says X is now becoming “a very unpleasant place” due to a rise racist accounts and content
Reform leader says that many of his ethnic minority candidates are experiencing huge levels of abuse
— Noa Hoffman (@hoffman_noa) April 20, 2026
It’s also why we now have political parties to Farage’s right which are more clearly following through on Reform’s racist dog whistles.
A very dangerous place
Farage made his comments at a press conference on Monday 20 April:
The online abuse on X that our minority candidates are receiving is utterly appalling in every way.
If it was happening to any other candidates from more established parties in the sense of their age, you would all be in total uproar
The problem with this is that minority candidates from the established parties have faced racist abuse on X/Twitter for years. Further to this, many of them have experienced racist abuse from people who identified themselves as Reform supporters (many of whom have moved on to support Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain).
Farage added:
It really, really is bad.
X is now becoming a very unpleasant, very dangerous place.
As people have noted, Farage has brought this on himself (or, to be specific, he’s brought it on his candidates):
“Becoming”.
Reform UK’s refusal to counter its own supporters hate and racism is a huge part of the problem that’s existed for years. pic.twitter.com/qBSyWYlbug
— Reform Party UK Exposed
(@reformexposed) April 21, 2026
Patterns with Farage and Reform
To be clear, it’s not just first generation migrants who Farage attacks. Recently, he lost his mind because British Muslims were being visibly Muslim in Britain:
What we witnessed in London at the historic Trafalgar Square, in a country built on Judeo-Christian values, was a group of people attempting dominance over our capital city and our culture.
We are not going to surrender everything that was built over centuries and defended at… pic.twitter.com/LcHx0ut1xo
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) March 19, 2026
In other words, the racists who supported Reform weren’t wrong to think he agreed with them. And it was predictable that they would feel personally betrayed when he began promoting candidates who weren’t white Brits like themselves.
Another recent example of this was when Reform backed Laila Cunningham as their candidate to become the next mayor of London. As we reported at the time:
Recently, nearly three dozen people from Nigel Farage’s past came forwards to allege that he was a strident, Nazi-style racist as a younger man. Farage alternated between denying the comments, claiming he didn’t mean them in a bad way, and then denying them again. As we covered, an insider claimed Farage wouldn’t admit to or apologise for the racism because he’d be telling his supporters ‘you’re all guilty too‘. Now, he’s doing just that.
Specifically, Farage is calling out the racists who are abusing Reform UK’s Muslim mayoral candidate. The problem is that many of these people are the party’s ideological bedfellows, including a founder of the Brexit Party:
I will never vote for her for : she is not English and she is a Muslim. https://t.co/9IShOHTshY
— Catherine Blaiklock (@blaiklockBP) January 7, 2026
This was the moment when many Reform supporters became publicly hostile towards Farage.
Contradictions
For years, the Tories held together an alliance which included both ardent racists and liberal conservatives. Now, that base has split in two, with the majority of the diehard racists in Reform, and the majority of the One Nation Conservatives staying put:
POLL | Reform lead by 4pts
Ref: 26% (-1)
Lab: 22% (+1)
Con: 17% (=)
Grn: 15% (=)
Lib: 11% (-1)
— Seats —
SNP: 47
Plaid: 10
Poll: @OpiniumResearch, 15-17 Apr (+/- vs 20 Mar) pic.twitter.com/uQyb0DPblv
— Stats for Lefties
(@LeftieStats) April 18, 2026
Farage clearly wants to rebuild that alliance, but he risks splitting his own vote, with Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain Party sweeping up the voters who want to go all the way.
The troubling thing is that regardless of where these voters end up, there’s clearly an appetite for far-right politics.
This is why we need politicians who can clearly show what’s actually making us all poor – namely the widening gap between everyday people and the billionaire class which is absorbing more and more of this country’s wealth.
.@faizashaheen: “I support the Greens… everyone sees the rot in the political system, typified by Mandelson… no politician is delivering for people… lots of people are turning to the Greens… we want to live in a country where we care for each other, where change does happen” pic.twitter.com/ECXSwZKkOC
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) April 19, 2026
Featured image via Canva
By Willem Moore
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