Nigel Farage doubles down on Southport attacks claims as approval ratings plummet

Nigel Farage has doubled down on his much-criticised claims about the Southport stabbings, as new polling shows the Reform UK leader’s popularity has plummeted.

Following the killings of three girls last week, Mr Farage claimed “the truth was being withheld” about the suspect and has gone on to allege the riots that followed were due to a lack of information provided to the public by authorities.

It was false claims shared about the suspect’s name and faith on social media that whipped up anger that contributed to the racist riots that have blighted England in the last week, with nearly 500 people now arrested.

However, despite the trouble, Mr Farage stuck by his line of questioning on Talk TV on Thursday: “What I did sense after those horrific murders was we weren’t being told anything.

“We had a lot of, I saw it as you did, ‘he arrived on a boat across the Channel last October, he was a Muslim activist, etc.’ And I said, can you tell us, was this man on a watch list? Yes or no. Remember the London bridge attacks, within an hour of the attack we knew the man had been on a watch list.

“One of the reasons the Southport riots were as bad as they were, one of the reasons the mosque itself was targeted was because the authorities didn’t tell us quickly enough what the truth was. We then learnt a few hours later he was born in Cardiff and actually he wasn’t a radical Islamist at all. But my question about whether he was on a watch list still hasn’t been answered.”

Mr Farage has seen his approval ratings fall over the last week, with the Reform UK leader experiencing a seven-point decline in his net favourability score.

Some 67 per cent of Britons have an unfavourable view of the MP for Clacton, polling from YouGov shows, while just 25 per cent think favourably of him. Previous YouGov polling conducted on July 31 put the Reform UK leader’s net favourability on -35, dropping by seven points over the course of less than a week to -42 .

While he holds an overwhelmingly positive net score among Reform voters, he holds a negative rating among every other group of the British public. For the first time this now includes Leave voters, with Mr Farage now scoring -4 among those who voted to for Brexit, down from 7 points last week.

A protest has been planned for Saturday afternoon to take place outside the Reform UK headquarters, with the organisers accusing Mr Farage of “inciting and making excuses for racist and fascist rioters.”

“A pogrom has been unfolding across the UK involving surging racist attacks of extreme and vicious violence,” they said. “Join the protest at Reform UK on Saturday 10 August at 2.30pm as part of the National Day of Protest against the far right.”

But, speaking to The Independent, Mr Farage dubbed the planned demonstration “absolutely disgusting, inciteful behaviour”.

The Reform UK leader has been offered extra security by the Home Office as a result of growing threats against his person. During the general election campaign, a cup and another object were thrown at the politician while he was on top of a party battle bus in South Yorkshire. A week earlier he had a milkshake thrown over him in Clacton-on-Sea in Essex.

Asked about accusations that he incited violence and riots, Mr Farage told TalkTV: “Some of what’s been said is absolutely disgusting. It’s cowardly, it’s unjust. I’ve been fighting elections for 30 years because I believe in the democratic process. I’ve never at any point in those 30 years been involved in violence, been involved in street protest. Been involved in any of those things.”

Last week, the husband of murdered MP Jo Cox accused the Reform leader of “inciting a riot” by “peddling conspiracy theories”.

Brendan Cox added: “This is why Farage deserves the label far-right. Everyone who is associated with him, has normalised him or promoted him should be ashamed. This is vile.”

Source: UK Politics - www.independent.co.uk