Nigel Farage has likened masked Muslim protesters marching through the streets of east London to a ‘foreign invading army’.
The Reform UK leader today condemned the scenes of balaclava-clad men who declared they were ‘uniting’ while chanting a series of messages in Arabic.
He revealed that Saturday’s Tower Hamlets demonstration – which came after police banned a planned UKIP protest to ‘reclaim’ the area – was ‘one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever seen in my life’.
Many young men dressed in black, with hoods up and their faces covered, roamed the streets waving Bangladesh and Palestine flags where UKIP had originally intended to march.
One protester at the Whitechapel demo took to a microphone and vowed he would ‘stand firm’ in defending his community.
‘They came specifically targeting Islam,’ he said. ‘They said, “we are coming on a crusade”, they said “we need to take back our streets”.
‘We stand firm to let them know if you come, we will stand firm and will be ready to defend our elders, to defend our women, to defend our community.
‘We have never once said we were going on crusades or going into your areas to cause you problems.
‘You are coming into our homes and you want to cause us problems. What is wrong with us standing up?
‘Today is a day we unite.’
Before the March, a community leader flogged £5 balaclavas to his ‘Muslim brothers’ as he urged others to ensure they were prepared and ready.
Suggesting protesters should cover their faces to avoid being identified by police, he said: ‘No face no case.’
The seller added: ‘What’s going on my people? In all our shops… this Saturday inshallah if you guys need it, £5 each. My brothers, please start buying them now as I don’t want you to come the day before and found out we have run out.
‘I want to be able to facilitate this for the ends, inshallah. I’ve got this one as I don’t like the other ones, it makes Muslims look like criminals, you know with the eye, none of that.
‘Please my brothers come and start buying it now so I can get more stock in to facilitate everyone for the day… get them on.’
Tower Hamlets – which has the largest percentage of Muslim residents anywhere in the UK – was described by Mr Farage as having ‘proper racism’ going on.
Balaclava-clad men reportedly chanted: ‘We will honour all our martyrs.
‘Allahu akbar. Zionist scum off our streets’.
Mr Farage claimed: ‘This was intimidation to the point of basically urging the mass wipe out of huge numbers of Jewish people.
‘It’s one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever seen in my whole life.
‘Maybe one day the deluded left will wake up to realise they’ve been with very strange bedfellows.’
He added: ‘It was like a foreign invading army marching through our streets.
‘And I defy anyone in this room to tell me that’s wrong.’
During today’s press conference Mr Farage also responded to the furious backlash against one of his MPs, Sarah Pochin, who had complained there were too many black and Asian people in television advertisements.
The party leader said Ms Pochin’s wording was ‘wrong’, ‘ugly’ and ‘phrased poorly’ – but he refused to condemn the comments as ‘racist’.
Yesterday, Zia Yusuf, head of party policy, insisted the remarks made by his ‘close friend’ should be put into context and that she had made a ‘valid point’.
Ms Pochin became the party’s first by-election-winning MP following her win in Runcorn and Helsby in May.
But she apologised on Saturday, admitting her comments made that week were ‘phrased poorly’.
The remarks were aired on Talk TV in response to a viewer who took issue with the demographics of modern-day advertising.
Ms Pochin sympathised with the caller, saying they were ‘absolutely right’ and ‘it drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people’.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting branded the remarks a ‘disgrace’ and called them ‘racist’.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats demanded Ms Pochin lose the party whip, which would force her to sit as an independent MP in the Commons.
Ms Pochin later said: ‘A study commissioned by Channel 4 as part of its Mirror On The Industry project, found that Black people were featured in more than half of adverts in 2022, up sharply from 37 per cent in 2020 following the Black Lives Matter movement.
‘By contrast, Black people make up around four per cent of the population in England and Wales, according to the 2021 Census.
‘Representation in advertising should reflect the diversity of modern Britain, but it should also be proportionate and inclusive of everyone.
‘My comments were made in that context, and I stand by the principle that equality should mean fairness for all.’
