Nigel Farage’s attack on Turkish barber shops amounts to dog-whistle racism without a credible plan to fix struggling high streets across the country, a government minister has said.
Miatta Fahnbulleh, the devolution, faith and communities minister, said the Reform UK leader was deploying the “politics of grievance” as his populist rightwing party attempts to capitalise on high street decline.
“We’re all aligned in thinking the last government failed in the last 15 years, but they [Reform] don’t have the answers,” she said. “They turn and do the politics of division. They blame people of difference rather than deal with the fundamentals.”
Asked if she thought the focus on Turkish barbers had racist overtones, she said: “Yes, I do. The fundamentals aren’t to do with the colour of the skin of people running our high streets. It’s to do with long-term decline and neglect.”
Reform has made crumbling town centres a key issue in the party’s drive for power, with promises to declare a “national high street emergency” and shut down illicit shops as Farage prepares for May’s crunch local elections.
With the party leading the national opinion polls, research suggests Reform has increased support most in the English towns with the highest rates of shop closures and long-term high street vacancies.
The party has taken aim at the growth in the number of high street barbers, claiming that many are fronts for money laundering and drug running. Farage said in Facebook video last year that Turkish barber shops were “springing up everywhere”. He said they only take cash, they don’t cut anyone’s hair and “they’ve got a Lamborghini parked out the back”.
Figures from the Local Data Company show the number of barber shops has more than doubled in the last 10 years to 3.1 per 10,000 people, despite a wave of closures for other types of shop.
Speaking in an interview as Guardian analysis reveals the changing fortunes of Britain’s high streets, Fahnbulleh said Labour recognised that many voters were becoming increasingly frustrated with seeing boarded-up shops.
“I get it,” she said. “They have had 15 years of not enough being done, of shops being boarded up, lack of investment in their communities, and – worse than that – being told things would get better.
“I point to levelling up and every time the government didn’t deliver it added to that view that politics can’t make your life better. So we have to change that. People are impatient for change and rightly so.”
She said Reform lacked policy solutions and pointed to the party’s “chaotic” leadership of local councils it took control of last year. “They don’t have a clear vision of what they are trying to do, and struggle to do basic governing,” she said.
“We can’t afford games and politicians that do not have a plan and cannot drive change. So there is an urgency for us. We do believe we have the answers and we’re determined to crack on and get things done.”
Labour has launched a £5bn “pride in place” strategy, handing funding to 250 regeneration projects over the next decade. This includes a community right-to-buy scheme that gives local people the right to buy buildings when they go up for sale, and licensing powers for councils to block too many gambling shops from opening in an area.
The government has also announced a crackdown on high street crime and illicit shops, including raids on car washes, nail bars and barber shops.
Retail and hospitality industry leaders, however, say Labour has added to the headwinds high streets face, including through tax increases and a rise in the minimum wage in Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget.
Fahnbulleh denied Labour had underestimated the pressures high streets are facing, despite the government’s partial U-turn this week on a controversial rise in business rates for pubs in England after weeks of protest.
“It’s right that the government is stress-testing decisions,” she said. “Increasing taxes in a way that allows us to invest in our public services is the right judgment the chancellor has made. We have to ensure we do our bit to get the economy firing, but also investing in the things people want – which is public services that work.”
Reform UK was approached for comment.
