Robert Jenrick was accused of trying to “deflect” from the latest Reform UK race row after he attacked the BBC and other parties during a heated radio interview.
The party’s Treasury spokesman clashed with a presenter on Radio 4’s Today programme as he was quizzed on the findings of an ITV investigation.
Undercover reporters filmed Reform councillors and candidates making racist and sexist comments while campaigning for the party.
One councillor described Asian families as “parasites” and said the government should “stick them on planes and fuck them off to Pakistan”.
Reform’s communications chief was also filmed accusing Nigel Farage of “protecting” a candidate who said David Lammy should “go back home to the Caribbean”.
In his interview this morning, Jenrick said Reform had acted to “suspend or remove” councillors who were filmed by ITV making racist comments.
He added: “In all political parties there are bad individuals. The test, actually, of a leader and a party is: how do you deal with these things when they arise? And you have to take them on a case-by-case basis. You can’t just throw people under the bus unfairly.
“But the individuals that you’re referring to today were suspended or were asked to resign, and that has happened.”
Jenrick said the party had more than 2,000 councillors and 280,000 members.
“In my experience, all political parties have bad apples,” he said.
At one point, Jenrick said: “You cannot do an absolutely fool-safe procedure.
“Look at the BBC for example. Can you now give a guarantee to your listeners this morning that no BBC presenter in the future will be exposed as a paedophile, as a number have been in the recent past?”
After Jenrick referred to the row over Kemi Badenoch’s decision to make a former neo-Nazi one of her advisers, presenter Anna Foster told him: “That was well reported at the time, and this is being reported now.
“Every time you’re asked about this, if you deflect to what other parties have done … you need to address what is happening within your party.”
Jenrick replied: “We are. I’ve explained how we’re doing that. I’ve explained how racism has absolutely no place in Reform. I abhor it and it needs to be rooted out of every political party.”
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