Nigel Farage has dismissed Reform UK’s housing spokesman following widespread outrage over comments suggesting victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster had simply died “how you go” as part of life’s inevitability.
Simon Dudley, a former Homes England and Ebbsfleet Development Corporation executive appointed to the role last month, lost his position after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer branded his remarks “shameful” and demanded immediate removal.
The controversy erupted following an Inside Housing interview published Wednesday where Mr Dudley characterised the 2017 west London fire that killed 72 people as a “tragedy” before adding: “Sadly, you know, everyone dies in the end. It’s just how you go, right?”
He proceeded to compare fire fatalities with road deaths, questioning: “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?”
Mr Dudley argued post-Grenfell building safety regulations represented “regulation which is not working” and claimed “the pendulum has just swung too far the wrong way,” suggesting excessive requirements were throttling housing construction.
Grenfell United, representing bereaved families and survivors, issued a devastating response describing the comments as “not just insensitive, it is deeply dehumanising.”
“Our loved ones did not simply ‘die.’ They were failed,” the group stated. “They were trapped in their homes, in a building that should have been safe, in a fire that should never have happened. Reducing their deaths to an inevitability strips away the truth: this was preventable.”
The statement continued: “To speak about Grenfell in this way is to erase responsibility. It suggests this was just fate, just ‘how it goes,’ rather than the result of years of ignored warnings, poor decisions, and a failure to value the lives of residents.”
Housing Secretary Steve Reed demanded immediate action, stating: “If Nigel Farage has an ounce of decency, he will sack his housing chief immediately. These disgraceful comments about those who died in the Grenfell Tower fire are beyond the pale.”
Green Party MP Sian Berry accused Reform of displaying “real disrespect to the victims of Grenfell,” characterising Mr Dudley’s remarks as “truly abhorrent.”
Following Sir Keir’s intervention on X, Mr Dudley issued an apology insisting he had not intended to diminish the disaster’s significance. “Grenfell was an utter tragedy and quite rightly prompted a wholesale review and tightening of fire regulations,” he wrote, adding: “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.”
The Grenfell Inquiry concluded all 72 deaths were preventable, determining that “decades of failure” by successive governments and the construction sector to address flammable cladding risks had preceded the catastrophe.
Reform UK initially defended Mr Dudley, arguing his concerns about excessive building safety requirements impeding housing delivery warranted consideration, maintaining “a fine balance between overregulation which can slow the delivery of new homes and ensuring that more homes are built safely” was necessary.
