Reform suspends council leader accused of racism

Reform UK have had to suspend yet another councillor in response to accusations of racism. The latest to find themselves exposed is Ian Cooper, the leader of Staffordshire County Council.

🚨NEW: In a recent interview, Reform UK’s Ian Cooper declared that he wanted to carry out his role as leader of Staffordshire County Council with “competence and professionalism” and “keep under the radar”.

Alas, that’s not what we found: https://t.co/H6Fv06QIBm pic.twitter.com/ztA5W1Zj43

— HOPE not hate (@hopenothate) December 3, 2025

Please note we used the phrase ‘accused of racism’ because it’s not fully confirmed to be his account; not because we’re unsure if the comments were racist. As you’ll see, there’s really no question there.

Suspended

Cooper’s comments were brought to light by the anti-fascist monitoring group Hope not Hate. His alleged social media posts include the following:

• Calling Sadiq Khan a “narcissistic Pakistani”.
• Arguing that a Black British lawyer should have “F’d off back to Nigeria”.
• Describing London as a “3rd world shit hole”.
• Posting that broadcaster Sangita Myska was English ‘in her dreams’, and that she is “neither ethnically, culturally or historically English. Your diaspora isn’t NW European. All you have is a piece of paper entitling you to British citizenship”.
• Referring to Canary contributor Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu as “Dr Shaga Bing-Bong”, adding “Time she F’d off back to Nigeria. She’d feel more at home there”.

Here’s @Nigel_Farage & @TiceRichard with white supremacist Staffordshire Council Leader Ian Cooper. pic.twitter.com/e66fGoRiHQ

— Reform Party UK Exposed 🇬🇧 (@reformexposed) December 3, 2025

While the far right and their allies in the media are constantly pushing what’s acceptable, it’s been commonly accepted for decades now that it’s racist to to tell people to ‘go back to where they came from’ or that they can’t be English. The fact that the people making these comments get furious when you point this out doesn’t change the fact.

The ‘Reform Party UK Exposed’ account has also highlighted alleged incidents of Cooper being racist. This includes him being a ‘top fan’ of the blatantly racist ‘The European Race’ account:

Reform UK’s Leader of Staffordshire Council Ian Cooper – white supremacist.

Reform UK’s leader of the council has earned his badge as a top fan of the Facebook page The European Race. Earned for regularly liking and commenting on pages’ content.

Here’s just a couple of examples… pic.twitter.com/Alygj8Z6WE

— Reform Party UK Exposed 🇬🇧 (@reformexposed) December 2, 2025

Great replacement and remigration

As the Guardian highlight:

In another alleged post a year ago, he said it was “a lie” that diversity was Britain’s strength and claimed that migrants from the “global majority south” were “intent on colonising the UK, destroying all that has gone before”.

This is basically the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, which is the far-right concept that white mono-culture is being replaced by malevolent forces. As the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism write:

The Great Replacement conspiracy theory is a white supremacist, xenophobic, and anti-immigrant concept that posits white people are being replaced by immigrants, Muslims, and other people of color in their so-called “home” countries. The conspiracy often blames the “elite” and Jews for orchestrating these changing demographics. The Great Replacement was conceived of by a Frenchman, Renaud Camus, who popularized the idea in his 2011 book Le Grand Remplacement. The concept spread like wildfire in Europe, particularly through the sprawling transnational white supremacist group Generation Identity and its social media accounts.

They expand on this, noting:

The normalization of the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory in mainstream political debate serves not only to demonize immigrants, but its believers have also plotted mass ethnic cleansings. In November 2023, members of the far-right and white nationalist German party Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, AfD) met with Martin Sellner, de-facto leader of the anti-Muslim and white nationalist Identitäre Bewegung (Identitarian Movement, IB), to speak about “remigration” – a concept pioneered by Sellner which advocates for the forced removal of non-white people from Germany to halt the supposed “Great Replacement.” The plan for remigration, in Sellner’s words, is a “decades-long project” that would combat “ethnic voting,” which is the idea that migrants are brought into the country with an expressed political purpose – that they will vote for political parties with looser immigration laws.

As we reported, the British far right is also talking about remigration as a political project. Notably, this saw Generation Remigration speaking at Tommy Robinson’s ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally.

“A long list”

Reform has said that it’s instigated an:

urgent internal investigation over Councillor Cooper’s non-disclosure of social media accounts.

This suggests Cooper had social media accounts which he did not make Reform privy to.

Gregory Davis of Hope not Hate said:

The picture painted by Ian Cooper’s social media posts is of a man who is deeply bigoted and tapped into far-right media and terminology.

Cooper joins a long list of Reform UK councillors who have been exposed for their extreme views. It’s particularly shocking that someone in a leadership position has not been vetted sufficiently – or perhaps Farage and his party think this is an acceptable way to behave?

The fact that so many Reform politicians have views which are identical to far right activists shows these people think Farage’s party is their natural home.

Featured image via Reform Exposed