Reform councillor Alan Feeney quits over offensive comments

Warning: This report contains racist and offensive language.

A Reform UK councillor filmed calling Asian homeowners “parasites” has resigned from two councils and apologised for his comments.

Alan Feeney, who has since stepped down from the party, was heard making the remarks during undercover filming for an ITV News investigation, external in the run up to council elections in May.

Feeney said he had resigned every post he held on Solihull Council and Birmingham City Council, adding that his remarks “were wrong, offensive and completely unacceptable”.

He has also been suspended from his job with the prison service, with the Ministry of Justice [MoJ] describing the comments captured during the documentary as “despicable”.

In July, his register of interests with Solihull council recorded he was employed as a custodial manager, a position described on the HM Prison and Probation Service website as “the most senior uniformed officers in a prison”.

Feeney was one of several Reform members featured in the ITV investigation, which was gathered over the course of a year.

In it, while campaigning in the run-up to May’s elections, Feeney described an area as “infested” with Asian families and called them “absolute parasites”.

He was also recorded saying no more than 1% of the UK population should be non-white.

Speaking to the BBC’s Today programme on Friday, Reform MP Robert Jenrick said he “didn’t like what I heard in the documentary” but argued that the party had acted quickly, removing or suspending those in the undercover film.

He added that all parties had “bad apples” and denied it was any more of a problem in Reform than other parties.

On Thursday, the party told the BBC that Feeney had “mutually agreed” to resign from the party.