NIGEL Farage has accused Anas Sarwar of introducing “sectarianism into Scottish politics” as he doubled down on a “racist” attack advertisement against the Scottish Labour leader.
Scottish Labour have reported Reform UK’s ad, featuring out of context comments from Sarwar, to Facebook’s owners Meta after promoting the clip on the social media platform ahead of an upcoming by-election.
Sarwar’s party and the SNP have condemned the advert, which Scottish Labour have said is “blatantly racist”.
But asked about it at a press conference in Westminster on Tuesday, Farage insisted the ad was true to the comments made by Sarwar.
This puts him at odds with Reform’s candidate in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election, Ross Lambie, who earlier that day admitted the comments had been spun by the party.
🚨 NEW: Nigel Farage accuses Anas Sarwar of introducing ‘sectarianism into Scottish politics’ as he doubles down on ‘racist’ ad pic.twitter.com/gZYqQKVNGN
— Hamish Morrison (@HMorrison97) May 27, 2025
Farage played the advert in full and then said: “It was Anas Sarwar that introduced sectarianism into Scottish politics, making it perfectly clear that his priority was to a certain section of the community.
“All we’ve done, all we’ve done is to put out the exact words spoken by him without any comment, we’ve said nothing just that we will represent the people of that constituency. And the fact that they, having chosen to go down the sectarian route, choose to throw accusations back at us says to me […] that we are winning.”
Sarwar have slammed Farage's comments, with the Scottish Labour leader calling the Reform UK MP a "poisonous man".
The ad features a clip of Sarwar speaking at an event for the Scottish South Asian community in which he says: “The days where South Asian communities get to lead political parties and get to lead countries is now upon us.”
It was picked up by online far-right agitators who claimed it showed that the Scottish Labour leader supported Pakistanis “taking over” schools and the government.
Reform’s advert claims that the video is proof that Sarwar would prioritise Pakistani people, adding that “only Reform will prioritise the people of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse”.
Sarwar said: "This is a blatant attempt from Nigel Farage to try and poison our politics here in Scotland."
He added: “Nigel Farage is a poisonous man who doesn't understand Scotland, doesn't care about Scotland, and that's why Scotland will reject him.”
Meanwhile the SNP candidate, Katy Loudon, accused Reform of "misleading" voters.
She said: "The advert in question is a blatantly racist attack which has no place in Scottish politics, and now Ross Lambie has admitted it’s also completely misleading.
“Farage’s party is shamefully stoking division, using baseless claims to pit communities against each other on the basis of spurious claims about political opponents.
“This is totally unacceptable and shows that people cannot trust anything Reform UK says."
