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Farage sacks Reform housing spokesman over ‘everyone dies’ Grenfell remark

02 Apr 2026 2 minute read
The fire at Grenfell Tower quickly spread due to flammable cladding in 2017. Image: Victoria Jones/PA Wire

Nigel Farage has sacked Simon Dudley as Reform UK’s housing spokesman after mounting anger over his comment that the Grenfell Tower fire was a “tragedy” but that “everyone dies in the end”.

Reform leader Mr Farage said Mr Dudley is “no longer a spokesman” after his “deeply inappropriate” words at a central London press conference on Thursday.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had joined calls for Mr Dudley to be fired over the “shameful” remarks, which a bereaved and survivors’ group branded “deeply dehumanising”.

Mr Dudley, who was appointed as housing spokesman for Reform last month, had said the pendulum had “swung too far the wrong way” on regulation after the 2017 west London tower block inferno, which killed 72 people.

The former executive at Homes England and the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation said in an interview with Inside Housing published on Wednesday that building safety regulations introduced after the Grenfell Tower fire were an example of “regulation which is not working”.

He went on to say: “Sadly, you know, everyone dies in the end. It’s just how you go, right?”

On Thursday, the Reform figure said “in no shape or form am I belittling that disaster or the huge loss of life”, adding he was “sorry if it was not sufficiently clear”.

Grenfell United, which represents many of the families bereaved by the fire as well as survivors, said the comments were “not just insensitive” but “deeply dehumanising”.

In a statement on Thursday, the group said: “Our loved ones did not simply ‘die’. They were failed.

“They were trapped in their homes, in a building that should have been safe, in a fire that should never have happened.

“Reducing their deaths to an inevitability strips away the truth: this was preventable.”


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Fanny Hill
Fanny Hill
2 hours ago

According to the Guardian, Farage has said he didn’t sack him, Tice dealt with it. Farage cited it as an example of Reform not being a one man band.
“Sack him Dickie”.
“Yes ok Nigel, straight away Nigel.”.

Leigh Richards
Leigh Richards
1 hour ago

Apparently they’ve just ‘lost’ their eighth candidate in Scotland as well…..and am losing count of how many Reform candidates have bitten the dust in Wales. A colourful phrase associated with ‘breweries’ springs to mind (we just have to hope the Welsh electorate are taking note of all this chaos)

Guess Again
Guess Again
1 hour ago

Obviously the solution to the housing crisis is to intentionally put low income people into death trap housing. For every working class person killed it represents, to these amoral ghouls, one less ‘burden’ on the taxpayer. Because obviously working class people are exempt from taxation, aren’t we?

Jeff
Jeff
1 hour ago

Reform have a type. I suspect that of it were not for the election, they would keep him.

Adam
Adam
6 minutes ago

And another one gone
Another one gone
Another one bites the dust!

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