Reform events ‘reminiscent’ of Nuremberg, says Tory fighting Farage in Clacton

Events held by Reform UK are “reminiscent” of those staged by the Nazis in Nuremberg, the Tory candidate standing against Nigel Farage has claimed.

Giles Watling, who was first elected to represent Clacton, Essex, in 2017 and is fighting for re-election against the Reform leader, said there was a “personality cult” around his rival candidate.

Mr Farage has held several public events during the election campaign and on Sunday was joined by Richard Tice, Reform’s chairman, and Ann Widdecombe, its home affairs spokesman, in front of 5,000 supporters at an arena in Birmingham.

Speaking to the Politics Home website, Mr Watling said: “I’m not ascribing any of these sort of things to Nigel Farage himself.

“But the method, the process, is just sort of reminiscent of the big rallies at Nuremberg, with people standing to one side.

“It’s a personality cult that’s been created. There may be no evil intent but it feels wrong and bad.”

The Nuremberg rallies became a fixture of Nazi Germany once Adolf Hitler took power in 1933 and lasted until the outbreak of the Second World War.

Mr Watling went on to argue Reform’s recent events were “chilling” and a “very un-British way of doing things”.

He said there was a “beautiful irony” that there had been defacement of Tory campaign flyers in Clacton by people “painting over my face and turning me into Adolf Hitler”.

Responding to Mr Watling’s remarks, Mr Farage told The Telegraph: “These comments show total contempt for the biggest political rally of this general election, and for all those decent people that paid their money and came.

“It shows how hopelessly out of touch he is with modern-day Britain.”

The race for Clacton marks Mr Farage’s eighth attempt at election to the Commons. Mr Watling won a 24,702 majority in 2019 but polls predict Reform will win amid anger at the Tories in a seat that heavily backed Brexit in 2016.

Seventy per cent of Clacton residents voted to leave the European Union and polling by Survation in mid-June predicted Mr Farage, who spearheaded the Leave EU campaign, would beat Mr Watling by 15 per cent, picking up 42 per cent of the vote.

Labour is said to regard the constituency as unwinnable and was accused of “not putting up a fight” against Mr Farage after its candidate was ordered to leave the constituency.

Jovan Owusu-Nepaul has since been seconded to the West Midlands, although Sir Keir Starmer last week insisted “we’re not backing down” in the seaside town and hailed the 27-year-old as an “excellent candidate”.

In March, Reform received an apology from the BBC after the broadcaster branded the political party far-Right in a news report based on agency copy.

Mr Farage on Monday said nobody was angrier than him about the racism row in his party after it emerged several candidates had made derogatory comments.

“This is a start-up party, I took it over a month ago,” he told Times Radio. “There were some people there that should never, ever have been there. And I’m sorry for that.

“And nobody is angrier than I am, particularly as we’re doing so well with black and ethnic minority voters.

“Yes, some bad apples in a start-up. They’re gone. And I won’t have anyone like it in the future in the party. I’m going to put this thing under much, much stricter control.”