A Labour minister has branded Nigel Farage racist for raising concerns about a surge in Turkish barbers.
Miatta Fahnbulleh accused the Reform leader of engaging in the ‘politics of grievance’.
The comments came after Mr Farage used a Facebook video last year to highlight how Turkish barber shops had ‘sprung up all over the country’.
He suggested they only took cash, did not really cut hair and often had ‘a Lamborghini out the back’.
Reform has made the state of town centres a key issue in its campaigning, warning that Britain is ‘broken’.
Nigel Farage (pictured campaigning in Gorton & Denton today) used a Facebook video last year to highlight how Turkish barber shops had ‘sprung up all over the country’
Miatta Fahnbulleh accused the Reform leader of engaging in the ‘politics of grievance’
But Ms Fahnbulleh told the Guardian: ‘We’re all aligned in thinking the last government failed in the last 15 years, but (Reform) don’t have the answers.’
‘They turn and do the politics of division. They blame people of difference rather than deal with the fundamentals.’
Asked if she thought the focus on Turkish barbers had racist overtones, she said: ‘Yes, I do. The fundamentals aren’t to do with the colour of the skin of people running our high streets. It’s to do with long-term decline and neglect.’
A Reform spokesman said: ‘This is not a matter of ethnicity. The National Crime Agency itself has said many of these establishments are used as fronts for money laundering as well as a whole range of criminality which is why they carried out hundreds of raids on them last year.’
In his video posted in April last year, Mr Farage was seen visiting a barber and voicing shock that they ‘actually pay tax’ and take credit cards rather than cash.
‘You’re going to tell me you actually have customers,’ he joked. ‘There’s literally thousands of them aren’t there, sprung up all over the country – Turkish barbers.’
‘A racket the whole thing.’
Speaking to the camera after chatting to the barber, Mr Farage said: ‘So there you are we have found a barbers shop that doesn’t have a Turkish sign out the front but actually has customers and doesn’t have a Lamborghini out the back.’
He added to laughter: ‘God, the stick I am going to get for that.’
