Yorkshire Police lectured that Nigel Farage's Islam views caused as much harm as a racially aggravated crime
From the Newshound archive · first published 29 September 2026 · last updated 30 September 2026.
Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick, whose comments about Islam, Yorkshire Police training sessions concluded, caused "the most harm" — a finding Jenrick called being equated with a racially aggravated criminal offence.
North Yorkshire Police officers attending a publicly funded hate crime conference were asked whether Nigel Farage should be arrested, after a speaker juxtaposed his comments on Muslim integration with footage of a racially abused bus driver and posed the question of who 'did the most harm'. The session was led by Abbas Najib, former police officer and chief executive of charity Better Communities Bradford, who told officers Farage would have been 'locked up' had he made equivalent remarks about Jewish people.
The conference also included GB News footage of presenter Matt Goodwin displaying a YouGov poll showing more than half of Britons view Islam as incompatible with British values — a finding the lecture sought to challenge.
Robert Jenrick said the training drew a comparison between his and Farage's views and 'a racially aggravated crime', cautioning that the police have been 'infiltrated by bad-faith actors seeking to police speech, not actual crime'.
The material has reportedly been circulated well beyond its original police audience, reaching students, council staff, civil servants and Prevent programme workers.
