Man arrested for threatening to shoot Nigel Farage
A man has been arrested for threatening to shoot Nigel Farage. Independent he understands.
Telegram A suspect reportedly wrote the following message about X to the leader of Reform UK in May: “I’ll shoot you in the head if you win.”
The post was made on May 8, the day after local elections, and the man was arrested in London on Tuesday. He was released on bail pending further investigation.
Commenting on the incident, Mr Farage said: Telegram: “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.”
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: Independent: “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 contacted a social media platform to access the user’s contact information.
“After the 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.”
The reform comes as Britain calls on MPs to improve their security following the murder of Ann Widdecombe.
Counter-terrorism police said Widdecombe was killed in a “targeted attack” and his death sparked a wider debate about the safety of MPs.
“We must do more to defend our democracy,” Sir Keir Starmer said at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, adding that it was “chilling” that three MPs or former MPs had been killed during his 11 years in parliament.
The Prime Minister added: “I have tasked officials across government to identify the best mechanisms to take this work forward so that it can progress as quickly as possible.
“And I hope the whole House can unite behind this in the coming months.”
New prime minister Andy Burnham also said a “serious review” into MPs’ safety was needed.
The reform on Wednesday called for the additional security budget for MPs to be increased from around £4 million to £100 million to provide full security for everyone who wants it.
At a press conference on Tuesday, the party’s internal affairs spokesman, Ziya Yusuf, accused politicians and the media of creating a narrative tantamount to “incitement” against Reform.
“It’s the climate we’re in,” he said. [Widdecombe] “killed” was one of “the brutal narratives from politicians and the media that Reformed UK is a threat, a threat that must be stopped urgently”.
He added: “It’s such a relentless narrative that it constitutes incitement. So why are we being targeted like this? Because we’re saying things that are unfashionable among many in Westminster but are popular across the country.”
