Man arrested on suspicion of posting social media threat to shoot Nigel Farage | UK news
A man has been arrested on suspicion of posting a message on social media in which he threatened to shoot Nigel Farage.
The Metropolitan police arrested a man in his 20s on Tuesday after they were notified of the post by parliamentary officials in May.
Farage claimed police were not taking death threats against MPs seriously enough and called for more money to be spent on politicians’ security.
Ann Widdecombe, a former MP and UK Reform spokeswoman, was killed last week as police investigated possible left-wing political motives for the attack.
A number of people, including Stella Creasy, Jess Asato, Jess Phillips and Ed Miliband, have been convicted in the past of threatening to kill or rape MPs. Last year, an Afghan man who entered the UK on a small boat was convicted of threatening to kill Farage in a TikTok video.
A Met spokesman said: “On Tuesday 14 July a man in his 20s was arrested by Met officers on suspicion of sending threatening messages to an MP.
“The arrest relates to a social media post from earlier this year that was reported to police on Friday, May 8. After receiving the report, detectives approached a social media platform to gain access to the user’s contact information.
“After relevant information was passed to detectives the man was arrested at a residential address in south London with the support of local Met officers. He was held in police custody overnight and then released on bail pending further investigation.”
A post about X during the May elections read: “If you win, I will shoot you in the head.”
Farage told the Telegraph: “This is the first time the police have proactively intervened on a social media post and I hope they are looking at three or four hundred other similar posts this year alone.
“This has been going on for years, not just with words but videos of people shooting guns etc. and we have made numerous reports to the police in the past, always being told that these social media posts do not meet the threshold, which is extraordinary.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Reform England’s home affairs spokesman, Zia Yusuf, said there was an “overwhelming sense of fear among Reform MPs” following Widdecombe’s killing.
He said: “In terms of the current situation regarding state protection for Reform MPs, there has been some movement very recently. I will not comment on this but suffice it to say that the threats are being taken seriously, especially in light of the new information.”
