'So What?': Nigel Farage Defends Reform By-Election Candidate's Sexist Comments

Nigel Farage has dismissed sexist and misogynistic comments made by Reform UK’s candidate in next week’s Makerfield by-election.

The party leader said “so what” when asked about Robert Kenyon’s now-deleted social media posts.

They include one in which he said women “can’t ref, drive or give instructions”.

He also said women presenting rugby games on TV “aren’t up to the job and only there to tick a box”, adding: “I’m sexist, sorry but I am.”

Campaign group Hope Not Hate also revealed that in 2021 Kenyon interacted with a social media message sent to former Countdown host Carol Vorderman, which read: “Happy birthday Carol, my God I would love to smell and lick your arsehole.”

Kenyon replied, “he’s only saying what we’re all thinking,” along with a thumbs up and a laughing emoji.

Vorderman has called Kenyon a misogynist, and told the Daily Mirror that she wanted “apology from Rob Kenyon, to me, and to all the other people he’s abused online.”

The i paper revealed 2019 comments Kenyon posted on a rugby league forum in which he claimed women who have abortions get them for “vanity purposes” and so they can “shag anyone they want”.

Other comments which have been unearthed show Kenyon claiming Russia was “within its rights” to annex Crimea in 2014, and telling England’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty to “fuck right off” for urging people to get a Covid booster jab.

Kenyon will go head-to-head with Labour’s Andy Burnham when voters in Makerfield go to the polls on June 18.

Asked about his candidate’s comments during a campaign event on Tuesday, Farage said they were “posted a decade ago”.

He said: “They’ve been taken wildly out of context, but they’re the sort of comments that you won’t necessarily get if you’re an Oxford-educated career politician living in a nice postcode in London.

“But I tell you what, they are the kind of comments you’ll hear in every pub in the country every evening, and we should be unapologetic that Rob is an ordinary bloke who’s carved quite a career for himself, had the guts to set up a business, served as an army reservist, is a patriot, likes his rugby, likes the odd pint, and said a few laddish things on social media 10 years ago.

“Do you know what I’d say to that? I’d say, so what?”

Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.