A newly-elected Reform councillor had to be corrected on which party he now represents after mistakenly saying “UKIP’s here” in a media interview.

Reacting to Reform UK winning four seats on Peterborough City Council, councillor Peter Reeve said: “Our message is UKIP’s here, working hard, with local communities.”

The journalist questioned Reeve on his party allegiance, “UKIP?”. 

Reeve, who still has himself listed as a UKIP Regional Organiser on LinkedIn and is a former UKIP councillor, laughed and corrected himself, stating: “Reform is here, working hard with local communities”.

He then said: “I’ve been doing this for the last 15 years, from the UKIP days all the way through to Reform.”

During the local elections campaign, Reform announced Reeve as an “experienced” and “serious” candidate. 

A Reform UK spokesperson said: “Cambridgeshire is a key battleground for Reform UK. With candidates like Peter Reeve and Ryan Coogan, we are putting forward experienced, capable individuals who understand their communities and are ready to deliver. These are serious candidates for serious times.”

The gaffe generated lots of comments online, with one X user stating: “He’s right in a sense, UKIP is indeed here but with a different name & Reform councils are already going down the same path as UKIP did back in the day. You would think people would learn, but they really don’t. More fool them, they deserve what they get.”

Another wrote: “Seems totally legit, competent, and exactly the kind of person you want in charge of cleaning the streets and your children’s education.”

Another simply commented: “Er…. Not a great start”. 

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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Tom Watson was the Labour MP for West Bromwich East between 2001 and 2019, and was Deputy Leader of the Labour Party between 2015 and 2019. He now sits in the House of Lords.

This article was originally published on Tom Watson’s Substack

Thursday’s elections will no doubt be reported as a referendum on Keir Starmer. That is partly true, as far as it goes. Governments always get the blame. Prime ministers always carry the can. That is one of the less attractive privileges of the office.

But it would be a mistake to stop there. The polls and projections suggest something larger is happening. This is not simply a judgement on Starmer, or even on Labour. It is beginning to look like a judgement on the two-party system, and on the Whitehall way of governing that has sustained it.

The figures are stark enough. Recent polling has Reform in the mid-twenties, Labour and the Conservatives in the high teens, the Greens in the mid-teens and the Liberal Democrats still very much in the field. Psephologists have pointed to heavy losses for both main parties. Some projections have Labour losing nearly 2,000 council seats, the Conservatives also going backwards, and Reform, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats making the gains.

If it happens, it will represent a fissure in our two-party system.

The sad truth is that many people will not be voting on Thursday for the party they think will run local services best. They will be voting against. Against Labour. Against the Conservatives. Against Westminster. Against a system that feels remote, slow and incapable of doing the things it promises.

Local elections have always carried national messages. That is not new. What feels different this time is the extent to which the local has been crowded out altogether. Nigel Farage and Zack Polanski have helped turn the campaign into a vote about race, migration, Israel, Iran and a whole range of questions which have little to do with who collects the bins most efficiently, fixes the roads or keeps the libraries open.

That does not mean those issues are unimportant. It does mean that the poor councillor defending a record on social care, housing, libraries or potholes may find himself judged on matters over which he has no control at all. Local democracy is often unfair. This year it may be positively brutal.

I can remember two years of terrible results for Labour during the Gordon Brown years. They were a blow. They chipped away at his authority. They added to the sense of a government losing altitude. But they did not stop the daily flow of crises being dealt with in Number 10. The phones still rang. The papers still came in. The decisions still had to be made. Government carried on.

What feels different now is the shape of the punishment. In the Brown years, the system still made a kind of sense. Labour lost. The Conservatives gained. The pendulum moved. The shock was painful, but the mechanism was familiar.

This time, the vote is scattering. Reform gains here. Greens there. Liberal Democrats somewhere else. Independents in places where local anger has found its own candidate. The two-party system is not simply under pressure. It is nose down, hurtling towards the runway, while everyone in the cockpit insists the instruments are being reviewed.

In Wales, the polling tells the same story in a sharper form. YouGov’s MRP has Reform and Plaid Cymru effectively neck and neck, with Labour a distant third. Other polls point in the same direction.

The striking point is not simply Labour’s weakness. It is the wider displacement of the old parties. Labour and the Tories are losing their place in the system. The Conservatives, already weak in much of Wales, risk becoming almost peripheral, while the main contest shifts towards Plaid and Reform.

That is the pattern across Britain. The governing party is being punished, but the official opposition is not the automatic beneficiary. In Wales, as in England, the protest is scattering. Reform takes one kind of discontent. Plaid takes another. Labour falls back. The Conservatives struggle to remain relevant.

That is why Thursday should not be read only as an anti-Starmer election. It is also an anti-Tory election, and a warning about the failure of the old alternation: Labour in, Conservatives out; Conservatives in, Labour out. Voters are not simply changing government. They are changing the terms of two-party politics.

That raises a harder question than whether Starmer has had a bad week. It asks whether the old bargain still holds. Britain’s governing model rests on the idea that a party wins power, commands the Commons, controls Whitehall, sets the direction for local authorities and delivers change. But voters increasingly look at housing, the NHS, social care, migration, energy bills, transport, planning and policing, and conclude that the machine does not work as advertised.

Whitehall still thinks in departments, consultations, reviews and efficiencies. The public thinks in broken appointments, rising bills, unanswered calls and things that never seem to get fixed. The gap between those two worlds is now a political fact.

Kemi Badenoch’s position is not easy either. I may be the only person who thought she was actually doing well as leader. She had begun to sound sharper and more settled. Then she disastrously called it wrong on the Iran conflict and overplayed her hand by calling Keir Starmer a liar. There are moments when an opposition leader must wound the Prime Minister, but the danger is that in doing so, they look less prime ministerial. I cannot help thinking Kemi is too addicted to social media moments rather than long-term strategic clarity.

Ed Davey, whom I like very much, appears to have been forced into chasing the daily media cycle, from Trump to Mandelson and whatever else happens to be passing across the screen. One assumes his team worry that the one-man media machine of Zack Polanski will steal the oxygen. They may be right. But it is not always wise to chase a populist, particularly for liberals.

And what of the potential winners, Polanski and Farage? Their success would tell us as much about the weakness of the old parties as about the strength of the new ones. Both have understood that attention now moves faster than organisation. The danger is that attention is not the same as trust, and noise is not the same as government.

Polanski is certainly a media sensation. No one can deny that. But short-term sensation is not the same as long-term strength. He has allowed his party to be drawn into the hands of people whose political style will be familiar to anyone who watched the autocratic grip placed on Labour under Corbyn. That may work well on TikTok, but he has already turned himself into the riskiest choice for PM in a generation.

And then there is Nigel Farage. He will claim victory on Thursday whatever the numbers say. It is hard to lose from a standing start, especially when you have spent years explaining that every setback proves the establishment is terrified of you. Whether this projects him towards office is another question. A reported £5 million personal gift from Christopher Harborne, now under scrutiny by the Electoral Commission and the parliamentary standards commissioner, ought to matter in the arguments ahead. These are unusual times, though. Perhaps in the new politics, £5 million is just a rounding error. Who knows, in the present climate?

Meanwhile, the people who deserve most sympathy are barely in the national story at all. There are some very fine civic leaders facing serious challenges this week. They will not all deserve the verdict they receive. Many will have worked hard, served decently and tried to hold together public services under impossible pressure.

They are in my thoughts. I have always believed local parties are nothing without their councillors. They are the lifeblood. They are the glue. They keep the organisation alive when the national leadership is popular, and they keep it breathing when it is not.

As commentators say this is going to be the worst night in human history for an incumbent government, one thing can safely be said: Labour has at least got its expectations management right!

Somewhere in Tory and Labour HQ, clever young men and women with lanyards are drafting lines saying they always knew the asteroid was coming and are pleased it has landed broadly within the expected blast radius.

But the more serious point is not the size of the defeat. It is the meaning of the fragmentation. Voters are no longer merely changing sides. They are losing faith in not just the main parties, but the whole system.

That is a much more dangerous thing.

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The Lib Dems had an impressive showing at the 2024 general election, winning 72 seats with 12.2% of the vote. Ed Davey’s party continues to poll on around 12% nationally, but how will that translate at a local level on 7 May? 

It must be said that the Lib Dems tend to outperform their national vote share at a local council level, due to their strong ward-level infrastructure. As well as this, Davey said in last year’s campaign, his party wants to replace the Conservatives as the “party of Middle England”.

That strategy paid off in the local elections last year, with the Lib Dems making big gains in more affluent, rural counties, and taking control of councils in Shropshire, Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

Can they emulate that success this year? And how will they do in Scotland and Wales?

How is it looking for the Lib Dems in Scotland?

With five MSPs, the Lib Dems are currently one of the smallest parties in Holyrood.

While the party is predicted to remain one of the smaller parties in the Scottish Parliament, according to an MRP poll by More in Common, they are expected to win 14 seats – 8 constituencies and 6 list seats, trebling their presence in Holyrood compared to 2021.

They are expected to regain seats across their heartlands in the North of Scotland, as well as making gains in urban areas such as Edinburgh and suburban constituencies such as Strathkelvin and Bearsden.

Will the Lib Dems lose out or make small gains in Wales?

In Wales, the Lib Dems currently have one seat, which is held by the Welsh leader of the Lib Dems, Jane Dodds. Despite speculation about whether the party may even lose this seat on polling day, a More in Common MRP poll gives a more optimistic outlook, suggesting the Lib Dems could secure another two seats next Thursday.

So a good night for the Lib Dems would involve keeping their Welsh leader in the Senedd, and potentially adding a couple more Senedd members. With both Plaid Cymru and Reform UK projected to be short of the 49 seats needed to win a majority, the Lib Dems could find themselves in a position to be part of a coalition with Plaid Cymru and other left parties. 

How might the Lib Dems do in the English local elections?

A good night for the Lib Dems and heavy losses for the Tories and Labour could see them overtake the Conservatives to become the second largest party in local government after Labour.

In next week’s vote, the Lib Dems are defending over 700 seats in England, with projections suggesting that they could elect around 100 more councillors. Pollster Lord Robert Hayward has predicted that the Liberal Democrats could pick up as many as 150 seats.

The party could also win control of more councils. They are likely to take control of West Surrey, which is a new local authority.

In Stockport, the Lib Dems are eyeing up outright control of the council, which they have 30 seats on, and are two seats short of a majority. 

The party may also form minority administrations in Newcastle upon Tyne and Hull, as well as further South in West Oxfordshire, Cherwell and Three Rivers. 

What would a good night look like for the Lib Dems in the 2026 mayoral elections?

The Lib Dems’ Peter Taylor is the incumbent directly-elected Mayor of Watford, and is seeking re-election next week. The Lib Dems are projected to keep the mayoralty and win a majority on Watford Borough Council. The party is unlikely to be in contention in other mayoral contests in Croydon, Hackney, Lewisham, Newham and Tower Hamlets.

Next Thursday looks set to be a mixed bag for the Lib Dems, but overall they are expected to put in a solid performance. If the projections play out, they will have found a middle ground: avoiding the heavy losses forecast for Labour and the Conservatives, but also missing out on the big wins expected for the Greens and Reform.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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Andy Burnham has urged the prime minister to change course after what he expects will be a “challenging” set of results at the local elections next week.

In an interview with Bloomberg, the mayor of Greater Manchester said that “It has got to be a moment of reflection” on the cost-of-living crisis and people’s loss of faith in politics. 

He said that after the local elections, Labour should start “to now pull through on a different course” and tackle the cost-of-living.

Analysis by Pollster Lord Hayward published today suggests that Labour could lose nearly 2,000 council seats next week.

Asked if Starmer should stay on if the local elections go badly for Labour, Burnham declined to say, but praised the prime minister for some of the things he has achieved so far.

Burnham said the prime minister “has already done things that I don’t feel he necessarily gets credit for”, such as renationalising passenger rail services. 

He was also asked about whether he will try to run for Parliament again this year. 

Referring to being blocked by Labour’s National Executive Committee from standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election, Burnham said he had already tried once this year “and it didn’t go so well”.

However, he said “I can’t remove the kind of feeling that someday I will try and go back”, adding “I’m not ruling it out”.

Burnham also said that the politics that Labour mayors have pioneered “place first, not party first — that needs to go national, and so we do need to reform Westminster”.

This week, the Times reported that Starmer has said he would block Burnham from returning to Parliament “at any cost”.

This comes after the Telegraph reported that Labour MP in Merseyside, Peter Dowd, did not deny that he would be willing to give up his seat for Burnham. 

Dowd has since rejected reports that he would stand down for Burnham.

Talk about the possibility of Burnham trying to replace Starmer as leader has not died down. 

This comes after he accused Starmer’s leadership of creating a “climate of fear” within Labour at the party’s conference last year, and repeatedly refused to rule out a challenge to the prime minister.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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Labour risks losing 1,850 seats in councils across England next Thursday, top elections expert Lord Robert Hayward has predicted.

It would mean that Labour would lose almost 75% of the 2,557 seats it is defending in the upcoming vote. 

Previous predictions had put Labour’s predicted losses at around 1,500 council seats. 

Hayward said that his figure, which is “well above” that, could cause a “collective nervous breakdown” among the Cabinet.

This will come as a major blow to Sir Keir Starmer, who is still in the throes of the scandal of Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador. 

Council elections in England, as well as elections for the Welsh and Scottish Parliaments will take place on 7 May, marking the biggest day of elections since the 2024 general election. 

The outlook is not looking positive for the Tories either, who are expected to lose around 600 councillors next week.

Hayward predicted that Reform UK will be the biggest winner, gaining 1,550 seats from Labour and Tory losses.

The Green Party, another rising force in British politics, is on course to gain 500 seats largely in London and traditionally middle class areas of other major cities, the pollster said.

He also said in his analysis the Lib Dems are on track to gain 150 seats, while independent candidates will pick up 250 seats.

In Wales, Lord Hayward has predicted that Plaid Cymru will be the largest party in terms of both votes and seats in Welsh Parliament, the Senedd.

In Scotland, he expects the SNP to be just shy of a majority in the Scottish Parliament. 

Image credit: Lauren Hurley / Number 10 – Creative Commons

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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Three Reform UK candidates have appeared on a leaked British National Party (BNP) membership list from 2008. 

An investigation by the Mirror and anti-extremist group Hope Not Hate has revealed that three Reform candidates in the upcoming local elections were previously affiliated to the BNP.

This is despite Reform leader Nigel Farage having boasted that his party has a “golden rule” that prohibits former BNP activists from joining the party. Zia Yusuf has also separately claimed that Reform has “the best vetting in the country”.

Reform has now expelled the three candidates from the party for “failing to declare their previous memberships of an organisation proscribed by the party”.

Last week, Jewish News revealed that David Prior, a Reform candidate in the Gateshead ward of Saltwell and Bensham, had previously been a member of the BNP.

Two further candidates, George Parnell, a Reform candidate for both Hart District Council and Hampshire County Council, and John Black, a Reform candidate in Blackburn, were both on the BNP list.

Parnell, who works in tech, told the Mirror that he may have joined the BNP for a week, before realising: “actually, what did I sign up for?”. The former Reform candidate later backtracked, claiming he had never signed up to be a member of the BNP. 

Black, who is standing to be a council candidate in Blackburn, the Mirror he had never been a BNP member. 

Asked to explain why his name was on the leaked list, he replied: “I have no idea.”

Prior, the boss of a roofing company, told the Mirror: “I made a mistake a lot of years ago… when I found out what they [the BNP] were all about I didn’t want anything else to do with them.”

Hope Not Hate’s director of research Joe Mulhall said: “The party has always been quick to push back against being labelled ‘far right’ yet recent weeks have once again shown the party is still riddled with extremists.

“These new revelations will be embarrassing for Reform as Nigel Farage has previously said that former BNP activists are not welcome in his party, calling it a ‘golden rule’ of his. Their decision to quickly expel these three candidates is welcome but it makes their refusal to do the same to the other candidates recently exposed for racism and extremism all the more telling.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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Zak Coleman is a campaigner at Green New Deal Rising, a youth-led organisation campaigning for climate justice.

There’s no point sugarcoating it. The far right is on the march. And instead of standing up to Farage and Reform, this Government is dancing to their tune with ever crueler migration policies and authoritarian crackdowns on our rights to protest.

On Thursday 7th May, less than two weeks from today, there are huge elections taking place across the country. For the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments, and local councils and mayoralties in England. These are the biggest set of elections until the next general election. If Labour do as badly as predicted, these results could be the final nail in the coffin for Keir Starmer. Whatever happens, they will mark a turning point in our politics – either Farage and the forces of hate that surround him will gain massive momentum on their path to Downing Street. Or – as we saw in Gorton and Denton – the forces of hope and resistance will start to wrestle the political conversation back from the radical right. 

It’s up to us to make sure these elections are a turning point towards hope. To send a message to this Government – that our vision of a world where everyone can thrive is more powerful than Reform’s billionaire-backed hatred and division. And far more popular.

Hannah Spencer didn’t just win Gorton and Denton because she was an incredible candidate. She won because an army of volunteers – ordinary people like us, many of whom had never campaigned in an election before – mobilised to knock on doors, make phone calls and deliver leaflets. 

In May we need to make sure that happens across the country. That’s why we’ve created My Election Map, an online tool which points you towards nearby events where you can help elect hope and beat the far right this May. Just enter your postcode and My Election Map will show you where your time and energy could tip the scales for inspiring candidates offering a hopeful alternative to this Government and Reform. Candidates who stand up for migrants and trans rights, who want to see serious action to tackle inequality and redistribute wealth. Candidates who support liberation for Palestine and radical action to address the climate emergency.

The world can feel so dark right now. But it always feels darkest when we’re facing it alone, in our homes and on our social media feeds. On 7th May, we have the chance to turn the tide by getting out into our communities, with other people who want to fight for hope with us, and changing things together. So whether you’ve canvassed in every election for the last 50 years, or never, we need you. Use My Election Map today – to elect hope, beat the far-right and defend your community. 

Want to stay up to date on our work? Join Green New Deal Rising’s mailing list here and follow us on social media @GNDRising. You can also donate to support our election work here. 

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Reform UK has expelled one of its candidates for next month’s elections after it was unearthed that he was previously a member of the extreme far-right British National Party (BNP).

Reform expelled David Robert Prior just one day after Nigel Farage addressed him and other candidates at a rally, according to Jewish News reporting.

Jewish News noted that the Gateshead ward where Prior was going to stand, Saltwell and Bensham, has a sizable Orthodox Charedi community.

They say that Prior had actively sought support from the Orthodox Charedi community in Saltwell, concealing his previous affiliation with the BNP, which was formerly led by the openly antisemitic Nick Griffin.

Prior’s name appeared on a leaked BNP membership list that was posted on Wikileaks in 2010. 

According to one source, Prior’s BNP membership was an “open secret” in his village, and questioned how Reform UK’s vetting process had failed to uncover his background.

A communal figure told Jewish News: ”If people like David Prior are slipping through the net, you worry seriously about Reform UK’s vetting processes.

“How many other secret far-right extremists are standing for Nigel Farage’s party on May 7?”. 

Reform said it has expelled Prior and withdrawn support for his candidacy “after failing to declare his former membership of a proscribed organisation”. 

Following his expulsion and in reference to his BNP membership, Prior told the BBC: “It was 20 years ago and I am not that person any more, I am devastated to tell you the truth.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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Nigel Farage has been urged to act over the string of Reform candidates who have been exposed for having expressed “grotesque” racist, sexist and homophobic views.

Despite claims from senior Reform figures including Farage and Zia Yusuf that the party has “the best” vetting processes, Reform continues to let in supporters and candidates with abhorrent views.

The Independent has found yet more examples of Reform candidates who have made offensive comments on social media. 

Andrew Mahon, a Reform candidate in Blackburn South East, has made a number of homophobic remarks about health secretary Wes Streeting and Green Party leader Zack Polanski.

On Facebook last month, Mahon wrote: “I wonder if Wes Streeting likes sausage? I wonder if he eats meat?”

In a now-deleted post on X in March, Mahon wrote: “Hannah Spencer the Green MP knows all about ballcocks and I bet she knows all about her heavy-duty plumber’s snake. I wonder, is she has unblocked any flue’s in Zac Polanski’s residence or undertaken any pipe cleaning [sic]”.

In another post, Mahon questioned why white people can’t use the n*** word, but black people can. 

Brett Muscroft, a Reform candidate in Wakefield, has voiced support for far-right figure Tommy Robinson, calling for him to be made defence secretary.

Muscroft wrote in a Facebook post that if Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, were made secretary of state for defence, “we may get Great Britain back”.

In a post from February 2025, Muscroft wrote: “Islam is like cancer. If you don’t remove it on time, it will kill you.”

As LFF reported last week, another Reform candidate, Ricky Hodges, also claimed that “Islam is a cancer”. 

Arnold Tabor, who is also standing in Wakefield, left a comment on a YouTube video in 2022 stating that the navy should shoot migrants in the English Channel.

In another comment on YouTube from 2023, Tabor said migrants should be put in a “huge walled workhouse city” and made to “work for no pay”.

Anna Turley, chair of the Labour Party, told the Independent “Farage needs to act and kick these people out of his party for good.”

While Farage could throw these candidates out of the party, it is now too late for them to be withdrawn as candidates in the 7 May elections.

Turley added: “These vile comments expose the type of candidates Reform are happy to put on the ballot paper. Despite all Nigel Farage’s claims about improving vetting in the party, he continues to stand candidates who hold grotesque views. Voters deserve better.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice has shared a photo on social media of campaigners out on the campaign trail which has several tell-tale signs of AI manipulation. 

Tice posted a picture of smiling Reform supporters holding placards in a photo that he said was taken in Birmingham.

However, analysis by Peryton Intelligence, a digital intelligence company specialising in online hate and manipulation, found that the image was almost certainly manipulated using AI, according to a Guardian report. 

The company said that a campaigner in the photo had “extra long fingers on her left hand and what appear to be six fingers on her right”. The analysis added that one of the campaigners “doesn’t appear to be gripping his sign at all”.

The analysis also said that “The faces (especially the mouths) of the figures all have a ‘smear’ to them”.

The placards themselves also blur the word ‘Starmer’ and the ‘O’ in Reform is “inconsistently circular”. 

“The road sign in the back of the image has a blank white box underneath it, and there are other inconsistencies and blurs in the houses and windows behind the figures too,” the company said.

Zack Polanski, leader of the Green party, told the Guardian: “There’s nothing real about the Reform party. Their supposed policies for working people are fake, they spin stories that are fake and now we know even their campaigners are fake.”

In the caption, Tice remarked that he spent weeks in the Birmingham suburb of Erdington in 2022, where Reform only received 293 votes in a by-election. 

On Sunday, he wrote on X: “Yesterday, I returned to Erdington and everything had changed. The support, the recognition and the mood was something I had never quite seen before. 

“On May 7th, this part of Birmingham is extremely likely to elect Reform councillors, and in a general election it could go even further and elect a Reform Member of Parliament. That possibility felt distant four years ago. It does not feel distant now.”

Reform denied that the campaigners or the photo were fake.

A Reform spokesperson said: “The photograph is real, however the version Richard Tice posted was slightly edited using AI, mainly to increase the brightness.”

Image source: Richard Tice/X

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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Protestors repeatedly heckled Nigel Farage as he addressed a rally in Croydon, South London yesterday.

Campaigners from youth movement Green New Deal Rising (GNDR) chanted “Reform is not welcome here” and “you are funded by billionaires and your party serves them not working people”. 

Another man stood up and said: “I’m a son of a bricklayer and the son of a teacher and you’ve done f*** all for the working class.”

Both activists were able to make their statements before being removed from the event by security. 

Farage responded to the protestors by shouting “Boring! Boring! Boring!” and saying “We’ve got a screamer”. As he said this, the word “BORING” flashed on a screen behind him.

The Reform leader was speaking at Fairfield Halls in Croydon yesterday to launch Reform’s London local election campaign. 

Reform has set its sights on running Croydon Council, which is currently a Conservative council.

Farage also said his party is “competitive” in Bromley, Bexley, Havering, “and maybe two or three others”.

In a video on X, the GNDR activists explained that they had disrupted the rally “because we will not allow Nigel Farage’s hate to exist unopposed in London”. 

The other activist said that “Reform is doing nothing for working class people like me and you. All that they’re doing is stamping on us and making us poorer and poorer while they’re funded by billionaires”. 

Protesters from Stand Up To Racism also gathered outside the event, where they chanted slogans including: “Shame on you” and “Off our streets”.

Michael Holland from Croydon Stand Up To Racism told the BBC that Farage was “not welcome in Croydon” because “he ferments division and we are not having it.”

“We are a multicultural town, the vast majority of people in Croydon are anti-racist and we get on brilliantly together,” he added.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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