Nigel Farage’s attack on Muslims during a recent interview has been called “racist” and “Islamophobic” but his divisive comments weren’t a surprise given his history.

The honorary president of Reform UK was heavily criticised for claiming that the UK has a growing population “who do not subscribe to British values, [who] in fact loathe much of what we stand for.”

When pushed in the interview by Trevor Phillips on Sky News, Farage admitted that he was talking about Muslims.

Farage’s comments on Muslims and immigrants shocked the studio guests he was with, including Labour’s Baroness Hazarika. “This reveals his true colours as a nasty race-baiting character,” she said. 

Zara Mohammed, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said Farage was doing what he did best, expressing “horribly Islamophobic, racist and hate-filled rhetoric of misinformation.”

Others also shared their disgust

Farage has always been a divisive figure. According to a letter written in 1981, during his school days at Dulwich College a teacher warned about his “racist” and “neo-fascist” views. He was also accused of marching through a quiet Sussex village late at night, shouting “Hitler Youth songs.”

In response to those claims, Farage acknowledged saying “some ridiculous things, not necessarily racist things. It depends how you define it” and denied knowing any Hitler youth songs. “Any accusation I was ever involved in far right politics is utterly untrue,” he added. 

Farage’s controversial comments

Despite a history of inflammatory remarks that contradict what many say contradict British values of tolerance and multiculturalism, Farage still gets the privilege to make controversial comments in the press about minorities — a luxury minorities in Britain are unlikely to get. 

Here are some of his most contentious statements from the past.

On Muslims

Back in 2015, in another interview with Trevor Phillips — who himself has been accused of making inflammatory comments about Muslims — Farage referred to Muslims as “a fifth column.”

In 2013, Farage reportedly said he supported Muslim immigrants who “integrate” but not those “coming here to take us over.” 

Farage used a speech in 2015 to say that there was “a problem with some of the Muslim community in this country” and suggested they had a “tremendous conflict and a split of loyalties.”

In March 2024, after former Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson was suspended for Islamophobic comments about Sadiq Khan, Farage defended him by saying he was very, very fearful of extreme Islam.”

On immigration

Farage admitted feeling “uncomfortable” hearing foreign languages on London transport. When asked why he objects to Romanian speaking their language on the tube but not German migrants like his wife, he retorted: “You know the difference.” He also suggested he would be concerned about living next to Romanians.

He once blamed his lateness for arriving at an event on immigration. “That has nothing to do with professionalism,” he said about being late. “What it does have to do with is a country in which the population is going through the roof, chiefly because of open-door immigration, and the fact the M4 is not as navigable as it used to be.”

But undoubtedly, his most infamous moment on immigration came during the 2016 Brexit referendum when he didn’t say anything. Instead, he stood next to a campaign poster that showed a line of brown refugees (Brexit was about European migration) with the words “Breaking Point.” Even the Tory chancellor George Osbourne called the stunt “vile” and “echoed” Nazi propaganda.

On minorities 

Farage defended a UKIP candidate for using a racist term to describe a Chinese person. “If you and your mates were going out for a Chinese, what do you say you’re going for?” he asked. 

In 2019, when talking about a newspaper editor, Farage said: “I think the way Geordie is behaving is verging on Black Africa. The intimidation of candidates, it is not pretty.” 

LBC fired him after he compared Black Lives Matter protestors to the Taliban and said the people who tore down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston – who he described as a “philanthropist”- were a “violent mob”. 

An open admirer of Enoch Powell, once calling him his political hero, Farage said the “basic principle” of Powell’s anti-immigration “Rivers of Blood” speech was correct.

On women and work, Farage said: “If a woman has a client base and has a child and takes two or three years off work, she is worth far less to the employer when she comes back than when she goes away because her client base cannot be stuck rigidly to her.”