Sadiq Khan said farmers protesting over inheritance taxes was “another example of racism, Islamophobia and anti Muslim on our streets” and that “the far-right needs to be stamped out”.
We can’t find any evidence Mr Khan said this and his office says it is not true.
Claims that the Mayor of London said farmers protesting over inheritance tax changes was “another example of racism, Islamophobia and anti Muslim [sic] on our streets” have been circulating on social media. But there’s no evidence Sadiq Khan ever said this.
Posts making this claim have been shared extensively across Facebook groups as well as on X (formerly Twitter) where one post has been reshared more than 10,000 times.
Many take the form of what appears to be a screenshot of a post on X (formerly Twitter) which says: “The London Mayor has said the farmers protesting today over inheritance taxes is another example of racism, Islamophobia and anti Muslim on our streets. He said the far-right needs to be stamped out.”
Thousands of people took to the streets of London on 19 November to protest changes to inheritance tax for farmers announced in the Budget.
The posts sometimes include the Sky News logo, implying that the quote was reported on by them. But Full Fact could not find any news stories along those lines on Sky’s website.
We have contacted Sky News for comment and will update this article if we receive a response.
We can’t find evidence anywhere else that Mr Khan ever said this about the farmers protest and a spokesperson for the Mayor told Full Fact that the quote is “not true”.
In February, Mr Khan said then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had failed firmly condemn “racist, anti-Muslim, Islamaphobic” remarks.
Misinformation spread online about politicians and the political process can undermine trust in democracy. It’s important to consider whether what you are seeing is genuine before sharing it on social media.
We have recently fact checked other fake quotes attributed to Mr Khan, including that he said people should learn Arabic to “create harmony” and that he vowed to leave the UK if Donald Trump won the 2024 US presidential election.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because there is no evidence that Sadiq Khan said any such thing about the farmers protest and his office confirmed this is not true.
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