Nigel Farage defends Boris Johnson calling gay men ‘bum boys’ and people of colour ‘piccaninnies’

Nigel Farage has defended comments homophobic, racist, sexist and Islamophobic comments made by Boris Johnson in a radio interview on BBC 5 Live. Photo: PA - Credit: PA Wire/PA Images

Nigel Farage has defended homophobic, racist, sexist and Islamophobic comments made by Boris Johnson in a radio interview on BBC 5 Live.

He excused the comments repeatedly made by Boris Johnson in the 1990s and early 2000s when the prime minister was working as a journalist.

Despite a number of opportunities to apologise, Johnson has repeatedly veered away from addressing the comments he made in his past.

Now Nigel Farage has defended the bigoted comments by describing Boris Johnson as a “very outspoken journalist”, adding that the use of terms like ‘tank-topped bum boys’ is simply part of the “Boris brand”.

The leader of the Brexit Party said: “Boris [Johnson] is a guy who has earned his living being a very outspoken journalist and that’s why he uses phrases like that. He talks about letterboxes, other things.”

Host Nicky Campbell pressed Farage on the comments further, asking: “Is the phrase piccaninnies referring to people of colour acceptable or not?”

“It’s not, but as I say that is Boris. He earns his living [sic] being a controversial journalist. I may not approve of all of it but I also think that if we start to go down the road of people saying this or that is unacceptable, if we want to bar him from public life, then we might finish up with nobody in public life at all.”

Farage then went on to attack Jeremy Corbyn for comments made in his past, stating that Boris Johnson’s hateful words were only ‘irreverent’ or ‘some may find offensive’.

Elsewhere in the interview Farage took questions from callers and discussed climate change and Donald Trump’s visit to the UK.