PM responds to comments by Reform activists, who were filmed by Channel 4 reporter while canvassing in Clacton

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Here’s the latest in the Guardian’s series on The broken years: Tory Britain 2010-24:

Unless the polls are wildly inaccurate, the Conservative party is heading towards a catastrophic defeat in the coming election.

Representatives from DUP, Sinn Féin, UUP, SDLP and Alliance to face off from 9pm

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Speaking at a Reform UK event in Boston with party leader Nigel Farage, chairman of the party Richard Tice said that the racist comments discovered by a Channel 4 investigation during the Reform campaign were “inappropriate”.

Tice said:

We put a statement out and it’s all self-explanatory in the statement.

The reality is that we’re a fast-growing movement, and when you’ve got unpaid volunteers, some people behave inappropriately. And they’re gone.”

We’ve had one or two candidates that have said things they shouldn’t have said. In most cases they’re just speaking like ordinary folk.

They’re not part of the mainstream political Oxbridge speak, we understand that. In some cases one or two people let us down and we let them go.

Gavin Robinson, leader of the Democratic Unionist party (DUP).

Chris Hazzard, Sinn Féin MP candidate.

Colum Eastwood, leader of the Social Democratic and Labour party (SDLP).

Naomi Long, leader of the Alliance party.

Robbie Butler, deputy leader of the Ulster Unionist party (UUP).