Nigel Farage has been called out for false claims he made about Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar during a speech.
The Reform UK was giving a speech in Aberdeen on Monday when he falsely claimed that Sarwar had said the south Asian community “are going to take over the world.”
This came the week after Farage and Reform were slammed for putting out a Facebook ad claiming the Scottish Labour leader was prioritising the Pakistani community.
The ad featured clips from three years ago of Sarwar calling for more representation of Scots with south Asian heritage in a speech. He does not say he would prioritise one group over another.
When Farage was asked about the ad – which the SNP and Labour have demanded Meta remove – by the BBC’s Scotland editor James Cook, he said: “We don’t talk about race at all. We think everybody should be treated equally. We object very strongly to the segmentation of people into different types.”
But this didn’t stop him from then making false claims about what Sarwar actually said.
Farage told reporters: “Sarwar has a record of obsessing on this issue. There was the famous speech that he gave in the Scottish Parliament saying, why is the judiciary white? Why are these leading figures in Scotland white? It was the most extraordinary speech given the statistics and figures here.
“Actually, I think that speech that he gave was sectarian in its very nature – you know, we are the South Asian community, we are going to take over the country and take over the world.”
It was at this point that Cook interrupted Farage, telling him Sarwar “didn’t say any such thing.”
When Farage argued back, Cook told him: “He did not say that the South Asian community would take over the country or the world, nor did he use the word ‘prioritise.'”
He then asked Farage: “Why can’t you just accept what he literally said, and not mischaracterise what he said?”
You can watch the exchange below.
Reacting to the claims from Farage on X, Scottish Labour MSP Monica Lennon said he was spouting “disgusting and dangerous racist lies.”
She added in a post on X: “He is a national embarrassment and a disgrace.”
Meanwhile, Adam Bienkov accused Farage of “open race-baiting.”
In Sarwar’s 2022 speech, he called for more political representation for people from Pakistani and South Asian backgrounds, saying that these groups should have the opportunity to influence politics themselves.
He said: “We will only truly get real power, not if we just have more Pakistanis sitting in council chambers and parliaments, but actually having more Pakistanis and South Asians sitting in the corridors of power, making the decisions.
“And that’s where I’ll end tonight, is to say the change is coming, and the days where our South Asian community are viewed as a vote bank or a curry bank are well and truly gone.
“The days where south Asian communities get to lead political parties and get to lead countries is now upon us.
“The days when south Asian communities get to decide, not just what school our children go to, but what they are taught in those schools is also coming.”
Farage was giving the speech ahead of the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse Holyrood by-election taking place on Thursday (June 5). The by-election was called following the death of SNP MSP Christina McKelvie.
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