Nigel Farage has been warned that Reform UK’s language on migration was responsible for the party not making the gains it had hoped for in London.
Speaking to The Independent Laila Cunningham, Reform’s candidate for London mayor, was critical of the way that talk of “mass deportations” played into the hands of her party’s opponents in the capital.
Ms Cunningham said: “When we talk about mass deportation, it’s illegal migrants and perhaps we have to be more clear about that because mass deportation does have some connotation, doesn’t it?”
She noted: “I think the opposition parties [Labour and the Greens] have done very well in not arguing our substantive policy, but just labeling us as racist or divisive. That has landed, sadly.”
While Reform made sweeping gains across England with more than 1,400 council seat gains, were strong runners up in Wales and joint second with Labour in Scotland, expected gains in London largely failed to materialise.
Ahead of the elections on Thursday, Mr Farage boasted that Reform had a “very real chance” of winning “half a dozen” of the 32 boroughs in London.
But while the party took control of the Havering borough on the edge of Essex early on it then failed in other targets including Bexley, Barking and Dagenham, and Bromley. Meanwhile Waltham Forest went Green, Labour held on to Redbridge and Reform had very poor results in west, north and central London.
The Independent revealed that in Bexley and Waltham Forest the party’s hopes were further hampered by fielding candidates who had made racist and Islamophobic comments on social media.
Victories in London were supposed to set Ms Cunningham up as the main contender to Labour’s Sir Sadiq Khan when the mayoral elections are due to take place in 2028.
But Ms Cunningham reflected that Labour and the Greens had managed to capitalise on the immigration debate in describing Reform as “racist”.
Just ahead of the elections Reform’s home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf had unveiled a policy of “mass deportations” which appeared to have spooked voters in the capital.
Ms Cunningham is the daughter of immigrants and described in detail how she had been forced to deal with concerns of voters about Reform’s language as she knocked on doors during the campaign.
“So I knock on someone’s door and they’re like, ‘your mom’s Egyptian, how come you’re running for Reform? You’re a sellout.’
“And then I explain actually, it’s not about that. It’s about fairness. It’s about illegal migration. You know, my parents came to contribute, integrate and assimilate, and that’s all we want. And then that message lands.
“Now, what Labour and the Greens have done is they’ve divided it up along religious and ethnic lines, and they’ve told all these different ethnic groups, ‘you’re a victim. You’ve been oppressed by this country. The country failed you. Only the Labour or the Greens can save you.’ They fostered support by almost instilling hate in the country.”
She added: “There’s nuance in politics.”
