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Nigel Farage has been urged to sack a Reform UK council leader accused of racism over social media posts including one saying a black British lawyer should have “F’d off back to Nigeria”.
Ian Cooper, the leader of Staffordshire county council, allegedly called Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, a “narcissistic Pakistani” and said migrants were “intent on colonising the UK, destroying all that has gone before”.
In a post attacking the justice secretary, David Lammy, this year, Cooper allegedly wrote: “No foreign national or first generation migrant should be allowed to sit in parliament.”
Reform UK said on Wednesday it had launched an urgent internal investigation into the council leader’s “non-disclosure of social media accounts”.
Cooper, who has not responded to the allegations, was Reform’s parliamentary candidate for Tamworth in a byelection in 2023 and again in last year’s general election.
He was elected as leader of Staffordshire county council in May as Reform won swaths of council seats across England and he is listed as the interim chair of the party’s Tamworth branch.
Nine Labour MPs from across the region have called for Cooper to resign over the posts, which were first revealed by the anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate and shared with the Guardian.
Dave Robertson, one of the Labour MPs, described the posts as “outright bigotry” and said Cooper had “exposed his far-right and racist opinions”.
The Guardian has contacted Cooper, Reform UK and Staffordshire county council for comment.
Sarah Edwards, the Labour MP for Tamworth, said the social media posts displayed “deeply disturbing white supremacist views”.
She said: “These far-right, racist ideas have no place in our society and certainly not in public office. As an elected representative of our county, Ian Cooper has a fundamental duty to uphold the values of equality, integrity and respect for all. By amplifying such toxic content, he has failed in that duty.”
In a post directed at the broadcaster Sangita Myska in April, the council leader appears to have said she was English “only in your dreams”, adding: “You are neither ethnically, culturally or historically English. Your diaspora isn’t NW European. All you have is a piece of paper entitling you to British citizenship.”
Cooper also allegedly attacked the British-born lawyer and women’s right activist Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu. In a post three years ago, he appears to have said: “Dr Shaga Bing-Bong … Time she F’d off back to Nigeria. She’d feel more at home there.”
In another post a year ago, he allegedly said it was “a lie” that diversity was Britain’s strength and claimed that migrants from the “global majority south” were “intent on colonising the UK, destroying all that has gone before”.
He is also alleged to have said diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) schemes were disguising “oppression” and enabling a situation “where indigenous people are actively removed or excluded and not allowed to complain”.
Two other Reform UK politicians were suspended last month over offensive messages. Laura Anne Jones, the sole Reform member of the Senedd, had used a racial slur in a discussion about the potential threat of China utilising TikTok for espionage.
In Lancashire, the councillor Tom Pickup was suspended for calling Keir Starmer a “dicktaker” in a post to a WhatsApp group where members allegedly called for “mass Islam genocide”.
