Reform UK Sacks Housing Spokesman Over Grenfell Comments

Reform UK has the party’s housing spokesman over his “disgraceful” comments about the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

Nigel Farage said Simon Dudley no longer speaks for the party on the issue following a furious backlash.

Dudley said “everyone dies in the end” and “fires happen” as he said there was now too much regulation in the building industry.

A huge fire at the 24-storey west London tower block killed 72 people in 2017.

The tragedy led to a major overhaul of building regulations to prevent it happening again.

But in an interview with the trade publication Inside Housing, Dudley said the pendulum had “swung too far the wrong way”.

He said the Grenfell fire was a “tragedy” but added: “Sadly, you know, everyone dies in the end. It’s just how you go, right?”

Dudley went on: “Extracting Grenfell from the statistics, actually people dying in house fires is rare.

“Many, many more people die on the roads driving cars, but we’re not making cars illegal, so why are we stopping houses being built?”

Keir Starmer called on Farage to sack Dudley over the “shameful” remarks, but Reform initially refused to do so.

But at a press conference on Thursday, the Reform leader said: “He’s no longer a spokesman for the party. That has been dealt with.”

Farage’s announcement was a surprise as the party had spent hours refusing to act, despite the mounting anger at Dudley’s comments.

Party officials directed journalists to a statement he posted on X in which he denied “belittling” the Grenfell tragedy.

He said: “It must never happen again. I reiterate that, and am sorry if it was not sufficiently clear.”

Farage later said Dudley had acted “in a pretty hurtful, insulting way to an awful lot of people”.