Farage fans fume ‘mainstream media is UNBEARABLE’ as ‘biased’ ITV GMB grilling sparks fierce backlash: ‘WOKE lefties in panic mode!’
Nigel Farage has been applauded by furious ITV viewers thanks to his handling of questions posed by the channel’s political correspondent, Louisa James.
Reporting live from Widnes after Reform UK’s historic by-election win in Runcorn and Helsby, James put the Reform UK leader under the spotlight after candidate Sara Pochin became the party’s first female MP.
Just six votes separated Reform UK and Labour as Pochin was elected to Parliament in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, and it led to Farage declaring his party as the “new opposition”.
Like several outlets across the media landscape on Friday morning, ITV’s Good Morning Britain heard from both Pochin and Farage for their instant reactions to the result – but an interview with the latter led to calls of “bias”, with one critic even branding it the “worse MSM interview” they’d ever seen.
The interview kicked off with James asking Farage if he’d been “circling” the venue waiting for the result to come in before he showed his face.
“I’ve never heard such baloney in all my life!” Farage replied with a laugh. “I wasn’t circling around, I was in a house a few miles away watching not just this result, but other results coming in around the country.
“Look, we’ve dug very deep into the Labour votes in the north of the country, very deep into the Conservative vote in Lincolnshire, Staffordshire, places like that, obviously much more to come tomorrow.
“This election was, of course, the big one. We won it by six votes, I was gonna come anyway, whether we won it or lost it by six votes. A) to support our candidate, and B) to show that in one of Labour’s safest seats in Britain that we’re now a competitor.”
James’s line of questioning then turned towards Reform UK voters themselves, with the ITV correspondent suggesting voters “didn’t actually know what they were voting for” but backed Farage because “they just wanted to vote against Labour and Conservatives”.
“Does that bother you because it suggests this may be short-lived?” James posed, which prompted Farage to hit back: “Well, if you can tell me what the Conservatives stand for, I’ll give you a tenner. And Keir Starmer seems to be tick-tacking all over the place.
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“People know when they vote for us – we are a party that came out of the Brexit movement, they all know that. We’re a party that wants control of the borders; they all know that. And we’re a party that says young men coming across the channel illegally shouldn’t be allowed to stay. It’s extraordinary that in Runcorn alone, there are 750 of them.”
“But you’ve whipped up that anti-migration sentiment -” James cut in as Farage promptly corrected her: “It’s not migration! It’s illegal immigration. Let’s get this right.”
Once again alluding to a lack of knowledge among Reform UK voters, James reiterated: “But that’s not necessarily the distinction that people who are voting are making.”
Farage stood firm: “No, no, no, no. They [illegal immigrants] are living in the streets here. Hotels may be emptying, but houses and multiple occupancies are here to be seen in street after street. People resent it.
“You know what, if you’re alarm goes off at 5am and you go off and work for 10-12 hours on a building site, the tax you’re paying goes up every year, and you think part of my money is going to these people who walk into this country and live for free, you do feel there’s a sense of unfairness.”
James continued to double down on the bizarre suggestion that Reform UK voters weren’t fully clued up on what they were voting for, clashing with Farage about the case of Southport murderer Axel Rudakubana.
When James claimed she’d spoken to voters who couldn’t make the distinction that Rudakubana wasn’t an illegal immigrant but rather the son of an asylum seeker, Farage replied: “Our voters know what’s right and what’s wrong, absolutely.
“In the last General Election, we had more of the Black and ethnic minorities voting for us than the Liberal Democrats. People know what’s right and what’s wrong, and coming to Britain illegally… I promise you, it was an issue that damaged the Conservatives, it will finish Labour in the north of England.”
James then asked if the Pochin’s victory would help with the party’s so-called “women problem”, adding: “Not very many women vote Reform UK, do they?”
“Not true,” Farage firmly answered. “At the General Election, it was 58-42 male-female. Since then, all of our growth share has been 50-50.”
The correspondent pointed out that under 20 percent of Reform UK candidates in the local elections were women, but Farage chuckled as he calmly responded: “Well, we’re a very new party, there will be people who stand and people who don’t. How dare you say I’ve got a woman problem?”
As the discussion approached its climax, James misquoted a previous statement of Farage’s, claiming he’d said women “don’t sacrifice enough in the workplace”.
Farage set the record straight: “No. I said more women tend to put family above work and men tend to be more selfish, and I stand by that.”
But an undeterred James drilled in on Farage’s use of the word “sacrifice”, to which the now-exasperated politician replied: “Oh, for goodness’ sake.
“Women make different choices from men, not all of them, but many do, and men are much more selfish when it comes to work commitments than women.”
Farage rounded off the discussion by lauding Dame Andrea Jenkyns’ mayoral victory in Greater Lincolnshire as well as Pochin’s win once more before bidding the ITV reporter farewell.
While the Reform UK leader didn’t let the line of questioning get under his skin, the same couldn’t be said for viewers watching at home.
Several responded to a clip of the interview shared by the GMB X account to express their outrage at James’s conduct and the subject matter of her probes.
“Call this an interview? The mainstream media is utterly unbearable,” one X user blasted. “The English just woke up with a bl**dy great roar. Get used to it, because this is just the start.”
A second echoed: “This reporter was a disgrace! Desperate to brand Reform Racist or sexist. Clear agenda there, maybe we could have some balanced reporters not a bunch of woke lefties.”
Meanwhile, a third raged at James’ assumptions about Reform UK voters: “Why do journalists like this always make sweeping assumptions that voters who vote to the right are thick and have no idea what they’re voting for. The same questions NEVER get posed of the left.”
“One of the worse MSM interviews I have ever seen so biased,” a fourth fumed before a fifth weighed in: “The lefty journalists are in full panic mode. Their line of questioning is pathetic.”
However, some felt the interviewer didn’t push hard enough with her line of questioning, with one X user wading into the debate: “Stop letting him spout this nonsense.
“Reform isn’t the opposition. When are you people going to start challenging him on his lies. He doesn’t like it, so grow a pair and start doing your job.” (sic)