PRISON workers branded Reform UK leader Nigel Farage as “no friend of the trade union movement and working-class people” at the POA conference this week.

Union general secretary Steve Gillan, national chair Mark Fairhurst and the TUC’s anti-far-right lead Kate Llewellyn joined a panel on the role of organised labour in combating the far right.

At a fringe meeting at the annual conference in Eastbourne, Mr Gillan said: “Reform wants to rip up workers’ rights at the same time as they are stoking division in our communities.

“We cannot allow the far right to spread hate. It is up to trade unions to lead the fight against them.”

Mr Fairhurst added: “Our crumbling public services and the cost-of-living crisis are not the fault of immigrants and asylum-seekers.

“Successive governments have failed to make the lives of working-class people better and people must reject the lies, often online, that wrongly lay the blame on immigrants.”