Dudley described 2017 fire as a 'tragedy' but added that 'everyone dies in the end'
Reform UK has sacked its housing spokesperson Simon Dudley for comments about the Grenfell Tower fire that drew widespread condemnation this week.
Dudley, a former director of Homes England, said the 2017 high-rise fire was a “tragedy” in an interview with Inside Housing magazine but added that “everyone dies in the end.”
Reform leader Nigel Farage said on Thursday that those comments were “deeply shocking” and said Dudley had “gone”, despite the party initially putting out a statement on Wednesday night defending him.
“While he has a track record in building new towns and houses and all of that, [he] clearly acted yesterday in a pretty hurtful and insulting way to an awful lot of people,” Farage said.
The Grenfell fire claimed 70 lives at the scene, with two people later dying in hospital, and caused more than 70 injuries in one of the UK’s deadliest residential fires of the last century.
Dudley, who joined Reform in March, made the comments while criticising regulations introduced after that disaster as “regulation which is not working.”
He also serves on the advisory board of centre-right political organisation Build for Britain, with past roles including a stint of just under eight years as managing director, fixed income at Citi and a 12-year spell at the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.
Reform came under pressure from prime minister Keir Starmer to sack Dudley after his comments, while bereaved families and survivors group Grenfell United also strongly condemned his remarks.
“Our loved ones did not simply ‘die’. They were failed,” the group said in a statement. “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.”
On Thursday morning, Dudley addressed criticism of his remarks in a post on X. “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,” he said. “It must never happen again. I reiterate that, and am sorry if it was not sufficiently clear.”
Housing secretary Steve Reed criticized Reform’s response to the comments and its decision to initially defend Dudley.
“Reform’s first instinct was to defend him, not sack him, and they had to be dragged kicking and screaming into finally doing the right thing,” Reed said. “Nigel Farage should apologise to the victims’ families for putting Dudley in such a senior position in the first place.”
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