Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has spoken about his controversial visit to Portman Road last week and revealed what he and Blues chairman and CEO Mark Ashton discussed while he was there.

Farage and a Reform social media team were at Portman Road nine days ago with fans and supporters groups subsequently reacting angrily to the Clacton MP being photographed and filmed on the pitch, in the dressing room and in media areas alongside Town shirts bearing his name.

Players are understood to have reacted similarly, while a number of sponsors, believed to include Halo, the University of Suffolk and Ed Sheeran, all contacted the Blues giving their thoughts on the matter.

After initially denying any official input, it later emerged that Ashton and chief operating officer Luke Werhun met with Farage during his time at Portman Road and on Friday an apology was issued.

However, many supporters felt it didn’t go far enough and that too many questions still remain unanswered, among them who instigated the invite, who gave permission for the social media aspect of the visit and whether the club supplied six shirts to Reform and on whose say-so.

As previously reported, the initial contact with Reform was made by long-time Town consultant James Pearce, suggesting a meeting between Ashton and Farage when he was in Ipswich for his Trinity Park rally, although without issuing an invitation to Portman Road, with a discussion of the recently instituted independent football regulator the focus. Both Ashton and Farage were against the initiative.

“I went to Ipswich because Mark Ashton wanted to meet me to talk about football regulations,” Farage confirmed while in Norfolk on Tuesday, Suffolk News reports.

“Frankly, every Premier League club and Championship club should want to meet me and talk to me.”

The Town board held an emergency meeting last Thursday and discussions between the various investment groups which make up the ownership are understood to be continuing, the visit having come as an unwelcome surprise to the US arm of the club, who had little or no knowledge of Farage or Reform until the story broke.

Over the weekend, Reform hijacked artist Louise Cobbold’s programme cover painting of the women’s team, tweeting an AI version featuring Farage from the Portman Road visit.

Farage claims the backlash Town have faced was down to “hard left lunatics” and it was “all part of cancel culture”.

“They got bombarded with hate,” he insisted. “That’s what the mob do – they frighten people. It shows you how nasty the country is.

“I’m not going to pick a fight with Mark, I don’t need to do that. But he comes under pressure, they start getting abuse. This is how people react because they thought they had to.”

Photo: Matchday Images