Party leader Nigel Farage has sacked Reform’s recently appointed housing spokesperson, Simon Dudley, following comments about the 2017 Grenfell tragedy labelled “deeply dehumanising” by the group representing survivors and the bereaved.
Dudley, appointed to the role last month, this week told media outlets that the Grenfell fire in 2017, which killed 72 people, was a “tragedy” and a “failure”, but added “everyone dies in the end”.
Dudley, who was interim chair of Homes England between 2019 and 2020, said during an interview with Inside Housing: “Sadly, you know, everyone dies in the end. It’s just how you go, right?
“Extracting Grenfell from the statistics, actually, people dying in house fires is rare. Many, many more people die on the roads driving cars, but we’re not making cars illegal, so why are we stopping houses being built?”
The comments provoked criticism from both Grenfell campaign groups and politicians. Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer said the comments were “shameful” and called on Farage to do “the decent thing and sack him”.
During a press conference today (2 April), Farage said Dudley had been fired and the situation “had been dealt with”.
Grenfell United, a campaign group made up of survivors and bereaved family members, said Dudley’s comments were “not just insensitive, but deeply dehumanising”.
Its statement added: “Our loved ones did not simply ‘die’. They were failed. They were trapped in the homes, in a building that should have been safe, in a fire that should never have happened.
“To speak about Grenfell in this way is to erase responsibility. It suggests this was fate, just ‘how it goes,’ rather than the results of years of ignored warnings, poor decisions and a failure to value the lives of residents, and is deeply offensive and ill informed.”
Dudley said in a statement on LinkedIn today: “Grenfell was an utter tragedy and quite rightly prompted a wholesale review and tightening of fire regulations. I said it was a tragedy in my interview with Inside Housing and in no shape or form am I belittling that disaster or the huge loss of life.
“It must never happen again. I reiterate that, and am sorry if it was not sufficiently clear.”
But he added: “In the past 24 hours, the Berkeley Group, one of Britain’s biggest housebuilders, has paused new land purchases and announced a hiring freeze, blaming ‘an unprecedented surge in costs and regulation.’ These concerns are felt across the industry. The result? The UK’s long-running housing crisis is getting worse.”
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