When Sangita Myska logged on to social media earlier this year, one message stood out from the stream of replies that have become a routine part of life for a high‑profile broadcaster. “English only in your dreams,” it read, before insisting she was “neither ethnically, culturally or historically English” and held only “a piece of paper” entitling her to citizenship.

The comments, allegedly posted from an account in the name of Ian Cooper, then the Reform UK leader of Staffordshire county council, were shocking but not, Myska says, surprising. She believes they are part of a wider pattern of hostility towards people of colour online – a climate she argues has been fuelled and normalised by Nigel Farage and the political movement he leads.

Myska, a journalist and former LBC presenter, has now chosen to speak publicly about the abuse, directly accusing Farage of having “emboldened” party figures and supporters to voice views that once would have been confined to the political fringe. “Reform UK is a private company and it’s the chief executive that will set the culture,” she says. “That person is Nigel Farage.”

The message directed at Myska is among a series of posts attributed to Cooper and first highlighted by the anti‑racism group Hope not Hate. Other alleged posts describe London mayor Sadiq Khan as a “narcissistic Pakistani”, claim migrants from the “global majority south” are intent on “colonising the UK, destroying all that has gone before”, and refer to the lawyer and activist Dr Shola Mos‑Shogbamimu by a mocking nickname before saying it is “time she F’d off back to Nigeria”.

In another post, Cooper is alleged to have argued that “no foreign national or first‑generation migrant” should be allowed to sit in parliament – a remark interpreted as a direct attack on the justice secretary, David Lammy. Labour MPs have branded the comments “white supremacist” and “outright bigotry”, and have called on Cooper to resign his council seat as well as his leadership position.

Cooper, who stood twice for Reform in Tamworth – at the 2023 byelection and in the 2024 general election – was stripped of his party membership on Friday after an internal investigation. Reform UK said the sanction followed his failure to disclose all of his social media accounts during vetting. The party has not publicly addressed the specific wording of the posts, and Cooper has not issued any detailed rebuttal of the allegations, telling supporters on Facebook only that he could “walk away… without consequences”.

It is that response, and the party’s official explanation, that angers Myska. For her, the focus on paperwork rather than racism is emblematic of a deeper problem. “We are living in an unbelievably toxic environment in which anything goes,” she says, adding that the position of people of colour in public life is “becoming harder by the day”.

Myska traces what she sees as a deterioration in the online climate back to the 2016 Brexit referendum, when Farage and Ukip – Reform’s predecessor – made immigration and borders central to their campaigns. She argues that the subsequent focus on small boats and asylum has entrenched a permission structure for abuse. “They created a particular atmosphere around people of colour,” she says. “What we’re seeing now is the legacy of that.”

Farage, now under intense scrutiny over separate allegations about his conduct at school, rejects claims that he is racist. At least 28 of his former contemporaries at Dulwich College have told the Guardian he used racist or antisemitic language as a teenager, including one allegation that he told a Black pupil, “That’s the way back to Africa.” Farage has responded that he has never said anything racist or antisemitic “with malice”, insists he never tried to hurt anyone on the basis of where they are from and has described some of his past behaviour as “banter” that would be seen differently today.

On Cooper’s case, Farage has said only that “it doesn’t look very good”, emphasising the importance of candidates being honest in the vetting process. He has not publicly condemned the language reported in Cooper’s alleged posts. Labour leader Keir Starmer has separately urged Farage to apologise to those who say they experienced racist abuse at Dulwich, arguing that his leadership of a growing national party raises the stakes of the allegations.

Reform UK, buoyed this year by a multimillion‑pound donation from businessman Christopher Harborne and the defection of its first peer, the former Conservative donor Malcolm Offord, has faced a series of rows over its representatives’ views on race. Two other figures were suspended earlier in 2025 over offensive or inflammatory messages, prompting questions about the party’s vetting and culture.

Local political opponents in Staffordshire say Cooper’s case exposes those concerns at council level. Nine Labour MPs from the county and neighbouring Stoke have accused him of espousing “far‑right and racist opinions”, while senior Conservatives on the county council have warned that Reform is trying to “sweep under the carpet” a wider problem rather than confront it.

For Myska, the fallout goes beyond one councillor or one party. She describes a daily barrage of messages questioning her right to belong in Britain because of her heritage, and says many other public figures of colour receive similar treatment. The difference, she argues, is that when such language appears to echo themes in mainstream political debate, its authors feel shielded. “People have always held these views,” she says. “What’s changed is that they now feel licensed to say them out loud.”

She continues to broadcast and to speak about her experience, but says the cost of doing so is rising. “This is not about me being offended,” she says. “It’s about what kind of country we want to be – and who feels they are allowed to call it home.”