A Reform UK councillor has been suspended from Nigel Farage’s party over a WhatsApp group where a member allegedly called for a “mass Islam genocide”.
Tom Pickup, one of Reform’s lead councillors in Lancashire, is now facing an investigation.
The group, thought to have been set up by a right-wing activist, saw one member message that Sir Keir Starmer “needs a f***ing bullet”, to which another replied: “He’s a DICKtator.”
Mr Pickup responded by calling the prime minister a “dicktaker”, according to The Guardian.
In other messages, he reportedly called a government minister a “Ukrainian boy penetrator” and said he agreed with “mass deportations”.
Mr Pickup posted: “Everyone in Reform is a lot more hardline on immigration than is typically stated publicly, to get a majority government we have to be tactical.”
Reform UK told The Independent that Mr Pickup had been suspended on Wednesday pending an investigation.
Mr Pickup told The Guardian: “Ninety-nine per cent of what occurs in groups, I don’t see. Based on my involvement in it and what I have seen, I’ve been my usual jokey self and it’s been twisted out of context.”
He said he had been unaware of the more extreme posts, which included one person allegedly urging others to stockpile weapons to attack “migrants” and calling for a “mass Islam genocide”.
Mr Pickup added that his comment about Sir Keir was “jokey” and in “poor judgement”, and said he had left the group.
Asked whether he supported calls for a “mass Islam genocide”, Mr Pickup said: “Of course not. I’ve done a lot of community engagement work with the Islamic community. It’s something that I would have condemned and probably reported but I don’t know if they [the messages] are genuine. I’ve not seen them.”
He would not comment further to The Independent but referred us to his comments in The Guardian.
A Labour councillor at Lancashire County Council called for him to resign, and said she had reported him to the authority’s standards watchdog.
Samara Barnes added: “We are at a time when we’re living in a tinderbox and if people are suggesting we should be having an Islam genocide, this is domestic terrorism.
“We’ve seen what can happen when people become radicalised, people become emboldened to do really nasty things. This is beyond an apology or some training. This is more serious, and Reform UK needs to really take a stand.”
