Nigel Farage thinks Tyson Fury is going to win Sports Personality of the Year
UKIP leader Nigel Farage has said he thinks homophobic boxer Tyson Fury will win the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award.
The boxer also claims to have “evidence” that paedophilia was legalised by a fictional ‘Gay Rights Act 1977’ – but the BBC has resisted pressure to rescind his Sports Personality of the Year nomination.
Asked by the BBC to respond to critics of his views, and the fact that he has been stripped of his title, he said: “I’ve got lots to tell you. Believe in the lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”
Speaking on LBC this morning, Farage said campaigns to remove Tyson Fury from the SPOTY runnings would “backfire” and that he will win.
The UKIP leader said he didn’t agree with the comments, but said: “I’ll make a prediction, get down to Ladbrokes, get your money on, because Tyson Fury is going to win.”
Farage said that he felt that “some opinions are totally acceptable and some aren’t”.
Responding to a caller on LBC, he said: “This attempt to shut him up, this idea that he should be kicked off SPOTY – it’s all going to backfire.
“This is a man who earns his living beating other adults senseless…he’s actually rather good at it, he’s a brawler, he’s just won the world championship. It’s the first heavyweight boxing champ we’ve had in a couple of decades. He’s a sportsman, he’s a boxer, he beats people up!”
He continued: “Fury is an evangelical Christian, that is what he thinks. I think he’s perfectly entitled to hold those views. It doesn’t mean I share them because this is the ridiculous route we go down saying if you defend someone’s right that’s what you stand for. I personally wouldn’t make abortion illegal but there are a lot of people out there, Alison, who think he’s right about it.
“We have big religious communities in this country that hold very strong moral views. It’s not just the Church of England or the Catholic Church, it’s also the Muslim church and many of the evangelical churches. And these are the views people hold.
“We’ve got to stop hounding out people for having difference opinions.”
Farage added: “Tyson Fury comes from a traveller community. People have all sort of prejudices and lack of knowledge about the traveller community, they’re a very interesting group of people. They have a moral code that is remarkably strong, it’s no sex before marriage, they’re totally opposed to abortion and they believe homosexuality is wrong.
“Actually they’re views that in 1950s and 1960s Britain were mainstream views and it isn’t just Tyson Fury that thinks this. Virtually every Catholic priest in Britain thinks this, virtually every Muslim imam thinks this.
“People, Alison in my opinion should be able to have their views.
“I bet you that it’s all the same people that want to ban Trump from coming into this country.”
Olympic track and field star Greg Rutherford has threatened to pull out of the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award if Tyson Fury remains in the shortlist.
Fury has been uninvited from the awards ceremony because of threatening comments he allegedly made to a sports journalist.
As well as calling those who have signed the petition “50,000 wankers”, Fury has taken to Twitter – to claim he doesn’t want the award anyway.
Greater Manchester Police are now pursuing a complaint of hate crime and investigating Fury over his comments.
In an interview with BuzzFeed, one of West’s friends said: “Andy loves the BBC but is so sad to see it giving a pedestal to someone who seems to be causing injury to people like him, who want to live their lives as the people they are. He just wants to stand up for gay people”.
In a leaked email from Andy West to BBCs director general Tony Hall, he wrote: “I appeal to you as an equal opportunities employer and proud bastion of fair-thinking to consider whether it is appropriate to celebrate someone who has stated that gay people are sign of a coming Armageddon and equates homosexuals to paedophiles”.
A BBC spokesperson has stated in response “We do not routinely comment on individual staff matters”.
Last week a challenger to Tyson Fury’s heavyweight champ title warned him to watch his mouth.
BBC News presenter Clive Myrie, during a live newspaper review on the BBC News channel branded Fury a “dickhead” after checking that it was “after the watershed”.
Fury today responded to critics of his recent anti-gay and misogynistic comments, by quoting Bible verse.
