The government is very “blasé” about the security of Reform UK politicians and has dragged its heels on taking protection arrangements seriously because its MPs have the wrong political opinions, party spokesman Robert Jenrick said.
The UK’s Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has invited Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage to have a meeting with the Home Office’s Royal and VIP Executive Committee (RAVEC) following the alleged murder in what police have described as a “targeted attack” of party spokesman Ann Widdecombe. Mr Farage has accepted the invitation, but Reform’s Robert Jenrick pointed out Farage has needed this meeting for years, not just days, and accused the government of playing politics with the lives of his colleagues.
Speaking to state broadcaster on Tuesday, in an interview conducted in the regular BBC style where the guest is persistently interrupted and talked over by the host, Jenrick referred to the decision by the government last year to slash Nigel Farage’s police security detail in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination. The government through its spokesmen has insisted it is not to blame for Mr Farage being refused adequate security as these decisions are dealt with by an independent committee, but Jenrick dismissed this claim, stating the Home Office could intervene at any time if it wished to do so.
Jenrick said:
He initially was given a comprehensive plan which I think is commensurate with the threat he faces… and then that was downgraded, I don’t know why… this is a man who is under great threat, and I think the authorities are very blasé about that…
The Home Secretary is not powerless… I think it’s in her power to overrule [advice] should she wish to, and I know of instances where Prime Ministers have chosen to provide security to individuals… I think it is basic that if you have someone in the level of danger that Nigel Farage is in, the Home Secretary should provide them with security.
Jenrick said that while Reform politicians were not asking for special treatment, nevertheless their willingness to tackle controversial political issues that many representatives from legacy parties would avoid puts them in greater danger from political extremists. The politician briefly cited the example of Reform’s track record of speaking out on radical Islam before he was again interrupted on the BBC current affairs show. On another area, the small migrant boats crisis, Jenrick recalled “a small boat migrant is now in jail for threatening to kill him.”
On the refusal to have a discussion about security for Nigel Farage until now — a long running issue which has led to Mr Farage self-funding his own protection and that in turn leading to media attacks on cash donations — Mr Jenrick concluded:
…the government chose not to give Nigel the security he needed, they have now as a result of Ann Widdecombe’s appalling murder offered him a meeting. The Home Secretary could have offered that meeting a year ago, two years ago. She chose not to.
That, I’m afraid, is playing politics with the safety of politicians and, I suspect, that is because they don’t like the views that Reform politicians take forward because we are not mainstream politicians, we are politicians who are fighting the establishment every single day and we’re not backing down.
Illustrating the level of vitriol launched against Mr Farage — who has been physically assaulted several times while campaigning — the Brexiteer revealed he received more than 300 threats a month. A report in The Times notes Reform UK’s security team has “recorded 1,577 threats against Farage since February, including 597 death threats” and that there is a particular group of dedicated individuals “believed to be fixated on the idea of killing him”.
The final public act of slain veteran lawmaker and Reform spokesman Ann Widdecombe last week before she was allegedly murdered was to speak in defence of Mr Farage as a guest on current affairs talk shows on Wednesday. One, with TalkTV, was broadcast while a second was taped and never released. A third booking to appear on television that day was due to take place shortly after police say Widdecombe was killed.
The unreleased second recording was, it is stated, for Christian broadcaster TWR-UK and saw Widdecombe warn of the “politics of personal destruction” being unleashed against her colleague Nigel Farage.
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