Pressure Builds On Farage To Dump Reform Candidate Who Said David Lammy Should 'Go Home'

Pressure is mounting on Nigel Farage to dump a Reform UK candidate who said David Lammy should “go home to the Caribbean”.

Former Royal Navy officer, who is running to be the Reform mayor of Hampshire and the Solent, said that was where the justice secretary’s “loyalties lie”.

He reacted on X to a report that former foreign secretary Lammy was “open” to paying slavery reparations to former British colonies. 

HuffPost UK has learned that senior figures within the right-wing party are growing increasingly worried about the lasting damage being done by the controversy over Dr Chris Parry’s comments.

One said: “Why can’t people just say Lammy’s an idiot without going into his family heritage? It baffles me.”

Farage has so far failed to comment on the row, and deputy Reform leader Richard Tice ignored questions on it at a press conference on Tuesday.

Parry himself was unrepentant when quizzed on his remarks on Talk TV on Monday night.

Asked by presenter Peter Cardwell if he’d written the offending social media post, he said: “I’m not going to talk about it. People should go to Twitter and see what was written and the context in which it happened.

“All I’m saying is if you’re the foreign secretary of this country your primary loyalty must be to this country.”

When Cardwell asked if he thought Lammy’s primary loyalty to the UK, Parry replied: “Ask him.”

The mayoral election in Hampshire and the Solent is among those delayed until 2028 by the government.

A Reform source said that gave the party “time to change candidate” but added: “I doubt we’ll do it.”

Justice minister Jake Richards told LBC that Parry’s remarks were “racist” and said that he if were a Labour candidate he would already have been dumped.

He said: “I think his comments are utterly disgraceful. I think they’re racist. David Lammy was born in Tottenham, he studied in Peterborough. He’s given a large chunk of his life to public service to this country.

“And I would say to people who’ve joined Reform recently – Danny Kruger, Jonathan Gullis, these are Conservative MPs that I’ve met [and] I think are decent people – do they really want to be part of this rabble?

“These comments are utterly disgraceful. I saw [Chris Parry] on the media trying to deny it even though he accepted he’d said it.

“We’ve got to point out when politicians of any colour are saying things which are dangerous. And these comments are dangerous, they’re wrong and I hope that Reform’s leadership will call it out.

“If he’d said those things and he was a Labour candidate then he wouldn’t be a Labour candidate by the end of the day.”