Reform council leader accused of racism after alleged remarks about Sadiq Khan

A Reform UK council leader has been accused of racism after allegedly describing Sadiq Khan as a “narcissistic Pakistani” and saying a black British lawyer should have “F’d off back to Nigeria”.

Ian Cooper, the leader of Staffordshire county council, is also said to have attacked the justice secretary, David Lammy, in a social media post that said: “No foreign national or first generation migrant should be allowed to sit in parliament.”

In another post, Cooper allegedly claimed migrants were “intent on colonising the UK, destroying all that has gone before”.

Nigel Farage’s party said it was undertaking an “urgent internal investigation over Councillor Cooper’s non-disclosure of social media accounts”. The revelations come after two other Reform UK politicians were suspended last month over offensive messages.

Laura Anne Jones, the sole Reform UK member of the Senedd, 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”.

Cooper, who was elected in May as Reform UK won swaths of council seats across England, was previously Farage’s parliamentary candidate for Tamworth in a byelection in 2023 and again in last year’s general election. He is listed as the interim chair of the party’s Tamworth branch.

In one message in February, seen by the anti-racism group Hope Not Hate and shared with the Guardian, Cooper allegedly called Khan, the London mayor, a “narcissistic Pakistani” and described London as “a 3rd world shit hole”.

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 alleged post a year ago, he 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”.

It emerged last month that Cooper had defended his fellow Reform UK councillor Peter Mason, who had criticised a statue of what he called a “fat arsed black woman” and described the police as “a bunch of politically indoctrinated British hating scum”.

In an email to Reform UK councillors seen by the Independent, Cooper said Mason was under “targeted political attack” by the party’s opponents.

He said: “Peter’s comment regarding a statue of a black woman was a critique of public art, not a personal attack on an individual. His views on policing also reflect concerns shared by many, including recent reporting that the Metropolitan police is expanding its ‘woke’ workforce while facing a £250m funding gap and cutting thousands of frontline jobs.”

Gregory Davis, a senior researcher at Hope Not Hate, said: “The picture painted by Ian Cooper’s social media posts is of a man who is deeply bigoted and tapped into far-right media and terminology.

“Cooper joins a long list of Reform UK councillors who have been exposed for their extreme views. It’s particularly shocking that someone in a leadership position has not been vetted sufficiently – or perhaps Farage and his party think this is an acceptable way to behave?”