I've been called racist since standing for Reform, says 2012 Olympic boxing champion

Yahoo

29-04-2025

Luke Campbell laughs as he remembers one of the most famous left jabs in modern British history. 'It was great!' he says of a punch so extraordinary, it made the front page of every national newspaper.
The 2012 Olympic bantamweight champion is not boasting about one of the many knockout blows he produced in his boxing career or even one by another of the country's best-loved fighters. Instead, he is sitting in a restaurant in Hessle, East Yorkshire, raving about the 'fantastic' reactions of former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott after a protester threw an egg in his face.
That Campbell is doing so owes everything to his shock move into politics and decision to stand as the Reform candidate for mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire, something that has inevitably drawn comparisons with the late Lord Prescott.
The 'Prescott Punch' was a defining moment in the life of the former Labour peer, who boxed as an amateur before serving as MP for Kingston upon Hull East for 40 years. Recalling meeting Prescott 'many years ago' and impishly requesting a tutorial on a blow struck during the 2001 General Election campaign, Campbell adds: 'This is what it shows you about the people in this region. We're not here to mess around. We come from good stock around here and you get real people.'
Prescott's stint as a boxer was unremarkable compared with a political career that saw him become the UK's longest-serving Deputy Prime Minister. The same cannot be said for Campbell's exploits in the ring, which included claiming Britain's first Olympic bantamweight gold medal for more than a century. He also won 20 of his 24 contests (16 by knockout) after turning professional and twice fought for the lightweight world title, losing by split decision to Jorge Linares in 2017 and by unanimous decision against Vasiliy Lomachenko two years later. He boxed only once more, losing to Ryan Garcia in January 2021 in his only knockout defeat, before retiring aged 33.
In the years since he has focused on running what he says are three businesses, which include a 24-hour gym and a 'property portfolio'. The latter includes the very building in which he is sitting during the final countdown to Thursday's election. Sporting a figure-hugging grey polo shirt, jeans and trainers, as well as a baby-face that belies the many years in what he calls 'the hardest sport in the world', he looks more than capable of holding his own in the ring even at 37. 'I could still be around now,' he says, before revealing he has 'body sparred' since stepping away from the sport. 'I've been hit in the head for many years,' he adds. 'I don't feel like I need to continue getting hit in the head.'
A boxing comeback would have caused less of a stir than Campbell's latest career move, which was announced when he appeared alongside Reform leader Nigel Farage at a rally at Hull's Connexin Live arena two months ago. In an unveiling with all the razzmatazz of a fight night, Campbell emerged from a boxing ring before standing flanked by fireworks as his arm was raised aloft by Farage.
Remarkably, Campbell says the idea of joining Prescott and the likes of boxing greats Manny Pacquiao and Vitali Klitschko in moving into frontline politics had not even occurred to him a fortnight before he decided to run. He freely admits he has never voted in any election, including the 2016 European Union membership referendum that led to the founding of the Brexit Party, Reform's political precursor.
He tells of how he was having breakfast with friends when one of them brought up the mayoral election and joked: 'Luke for mayor.' Campbell adds: 'I said, 'Wouldn't that be some story?'' He says he suspects one of those present had a connection to Reform because he quickly received a phone call inviting him to London to meet Farage. 'Literally, it's just been a whirlwind ever since. And it was only probably five days actually before the announcement where I said: 'All right. Do you know what? I'm going to do it.'' The recruitment of one of the heroes of Britain's greatest sporting summer appears to have been a masterstroke by Farage amid a growing public distrust in mainstream politicians. The Reform leader followed that up this month by enlisting Stiliyan Petrov, son of the Bulgarian former Premier League footballer of the same name, to stand for a seat on Warwickshire County Council.
Despite being a complete novice, a YouGov poll last week showed Campbell had streaked ahead in the race to lead a newly-created combined authority in Hull and East Yorkshire that will have powers over transport, housing, skills and investment. 'I think people are just fed up of politics now, to be honest with you. It's politics that has let everybody down,' he says. Stressing he does not crave 'power', he says he has no political ambitions beyond wanting to 'give back to the communities in this region' who supported him during his boxing career. He adds: 'This is my home. I was born and raised here.'
He talks about his working-class, Irish Catholic-born father having been Labour through and through but how he himself has no faith in Sir Keir Starmer's Government or the Kemi Badenoch-led Conservative opposition. 'Over the last few years, you see what a mess the Tories have left our country and the lies and deceit,' he says. 'And now Labour's come in lying about everything. And they're finishing the job that the Tories started. And I just think: 'Wow.'' Praising Farage for 'talking common sense' on the issues voters care about, he adds: 'We need a change. Our country can't continue like this.'
Yet, Campbell has taken an enormous reputational risk joining a party candidates have quit amid accusations the majority standing for Reform were 'racist, misogynistic and bigoted'.
His own unveiling drew protests against both Farage and the party and he says he has since been called 'racist' himself. Stating that 'one of my best friends is black' and that he has had supportive messages from 'a group of my friends from Bradford that are all Muslims', he adds: 'I've been in boxing my whole life, knowing that, as soon as the bell rings, everybody's equal. So I've always treated everybody equal.'
He says he cannot understand why Reform is branded racist, while the Conservatives and Labour have not been over a planned 'two-tier policy' in the sentencing of different ethnic groups for the same crime. 'Why aren't they getting labelled racist? Why should one group of people get punished more than another group of people for potentially the same crime? That's just ludicrous. Why isn't everyone just equal? I just find it mad.'
Indeed, despite claiming 'national politics go over my head', he has strong views about the issues driving voters to Reform. That includes about people entering the UK illegally and the housing of them in hotels in his region. 'What does illegal mean?' he asks. 'It means that they've broken the law. But are they getting rewarded for breaking the law?' He adds: 'If you're an illegal then you're not allowed to work. So, then what? What are you here to do then? Are you just here to live for free? To live in the hotels for free? To eat food for free? To get free healthcare?'
As well as being called racist, Campbell found himself accused of homophobia within minutes of his candidacy being announced. Two social media posts he wrote when he was 24 and preparing for London 2012 were flagged up, at least one of which appears to be an exchange between friends. Insisting he has no memory of the messages, he says: 'If someone's going to pull out what I said when I was – how old was I back then? – 22 [sic] years old and take it out of context if it was meaning banter or something like that, I think that's very childish. But have I ever posted anything negative? Have I ever called anybody any names? Have I ever maliciously sent negativity or bad comments to anybody? Never.'
For someone who was 'welcomed home by 20,000 people' after becoming Olympic champion and had not only a postbox but a phone box repainted gold in his honour, the response to his candidacy that has most upset him is that of a local primary school. Having previously named one of its school 'houses' after Campbell, it has decided to revoke the privilege, citing Department for Education guidance stating 'schools in England have a legal duty to be politically impartial'. Campbell, a married father of three boys – Leo, Lincoln and Levi – says: 'What is that teaching our kids? What is the education behind that – taking my name off one of the houses? Are you going to take away all the good stuff that I've done?'
He says any abuse he has received for standing, including on social media, has not crossed the line into anything more serious. And, although he can look after himself, he warns: 'If this gets in the way of my family or conflicts with anything with my family, or puts anything in jeopardy, see you later, I'm done. I'm gone.'
He nevertheless describes the response to him running as '80 per cent' positive and says he is trying to conduct his campaign in the same spirit. 'What I'm saying to my team is: 'You look at my whole boxing career. I never badmouthed anybody. I never had the trash talk. I was always respectful, even to my opponent.'
He continues: 'But it's so difficult in politics because there are facts that are out there, where there's a lot of waste being made, where the current leaders that are in charge aren't doing what they say they're doing. So, me coming in is from the angle that I'm connected to the people of this region, I'm on the ground all the time. There's no connection between the current leaders of the councils to the people. They make decisions for them and not with them.'
Campbell's decision to stand becomes all the more surprising when he says his retirement from boxing was the result of what he calls 'certain politics'. He is referring specifically to his last fight against Garcia, in which his opponent recovered from an early knockdown to floor him in the seventh round.
'When I dropped him in the second round, I haven't ever seen anyone get up and recover the way he has. Nobody,' Campbell says. 'I mean, I literally put the guy to sleep in the second round. He was asleep before he even hit the canvas. He was out. And he bounced back up and recovered like something I've never seen before.'
Campbell's camp raised concerns about a lack of drug testing following the bout that took place during the coronavirus crisis. Covid protocols reduced the frequency of testing across numerous high-profile fights at the time.
Just over three years later, Garcia tested positive for steroids and was banned for a year after admitting unwittingly using contaminated supplements. There is no evidence he has deliberately doped at any point in his career.
Campbell also claims to have been 'robbed' in his split-decision defeat by Linares and says his fight with Lomachenko was 'very close' (the judges scored it 119-108, 119-108, and 118-109 for the Ukrainian). And despite having ultimately succeeded as an amateur where he failed professionally, he is scathing about Olympic boxing. The sport at that level appears to be in perma-crisis, whether it be corruption scandals dating back to Campbell's own career or the toxic gender-eligibility that engulfed last summer's Games in Paris. Complaining British fighters like him had routinely been 'robbed' of victories down the years, he says of amateur boxing: 'It was run by the mafia, wasn't it, in different countries?'
Campbell says he watched one fight at last summer's Olympics only to switch off after seeing a fighter he thought had lost comprehensively awarded victory.
That is far from his only complaint about the Games. 'I thought the French Olympics was an absolute disgrace,' he says, denouncing everything from the opening ceremony – 'I was watching it and I thought, 'Wow, they're mocking the Last Supper in the Bible'' – to Imane Khelif winning women's boxing gold after previously failing a gender eligibility test – 'they let her compete and she just destroyed everyone'.
He describes Donald Trump's plan to stop those born male from competing as women at LA 2028 as 'just common sense', adding: 'To think otherwise is ludicrous.' He says that if there were enough transgender boxers, they should 'create a transgender league and let the transgenders fight each other'. He adds: 'A man in a man's body shouldn't be fighting a woman. No. No chance. It's not fair.'
If that kind of straight talking sounds familiar to those preparing to cast their votes for Hull and East Yorkshire's new mayor, it is because it was something for which Lord Prescott was almost as renowned as for his left jab.
That proved a winning combination down the years, just as it could now do for Campbell come Thursday.
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