The assassination of Charlie Kirk was met with celebration in some leftist quarters in Britain as well as in the U.S., and with comments from some that Nigel Farage should be targeted next, prompting the Reform UK leader to question whether Britain’s notoriously censorious police will make arrests or turn a blind eye.
Launching his Reform UK party’s candidate and campaign for a forthcoming special election in the United Kingdom on Friday morning, Brexit pioneer and party leader Nigel Farage MP also briefly reflected on the death of his friend Charlie Kirk and mused whether the government’s social media police, who have arrested so many for Tweets, would swing into action this time.
Speaking in Wales ahead of the Caerphilly by-election, Mr Farage reflected: “…it’s been another great tragedy this week with a very good friend of mine killed in America. And I just have to say some of the responses we’ve heard to that murder have been quite despicable. I just want to put that on the record.
“We are a party that believes in active, energetic debate, we’re a party that believes in free speech, but even free speech that had limits and nobody that ever represents Reform or wears our badge will ever, ever engage in such conversations even against people we deeply disagree with because that’s what the democratic process is supposed to be all about.”
Prompted by a member of the press on whether the assassination had triggered him to reconsider his own security arrangements — Farage constantly appears in public and has been pelted with cement and even milkshakes in recent years — the Brexit leader said he didn’t discuss his own security.
Yet after a moment’s reflection he appeared to have a slight change of heart and added: “what I will say is if we are serious about understanding what the limits of free speech are, and I will say this actually, those people who posted on open TikToks calling for me to be killed yesterday, let’s see if the police go and arrest them, shall we? Because if they don’t, we truly are living in two-tier Britain”.
That the government operates a two-tier system of policing and justice has been a frequent criticism against Sir Keir Starmer’s left-wing-Labour administration from the right, with accusations that different communities are policed and punished differently. Whether right or wrong, the claims appear to have struck a nerve among Britain’s governing class and have even at times prompted angry outbursts.
According to research by Lord Toby Young’s Free Speech Union, the British government arrests an average of 30 people a day for social media posts, as wholesale crackdown that has seen the UK’s reputation for freedom slide internationally. President Donald Trump has proven willing of late to ding Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on this issue, and is due to visit the United Kingdom for a state visit next week.
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