Man arrested over a threat to shoot Nigel Farage in the head as Reform logs 1,577 threats

A man in his 20s has been arrested over an alleged social media post that threatened to shoot Reform UK leader Nigel Farage in the head, the first time British police have acted on one of the hundreds of threats the party says its people now face.

Reform UK is the right leaning party led by Farage, the veteran Brexit campaigner who won the Essex seat of Clacton at the 2024 election and formally resigned the seat last week. He was still the sitting MP when the threat was allegedly made.

The post, made around the May local elections, allegedly read: "I'm going to shoot you in the head if you win."

The Metropolitan Police, the force that covers London, didn't name Farage but confirmed the arrest in a statement.

"On Tuesday, 14 July a man in his 20s was arrested by Met officers on suspicion of sending threatening communications to a Member of Parliament. The arrest relates to a social media post from earlier this year, which was reported to police on Friday, 8 May. After receiving the report, detectives submitted an application to a social media platform to gain access to the user's contact information. After the relevant information was returned to detectives the man was arrested, with support from local Met officers, at a residential address in south London. After being held in police custody overnight, he has since been bailed pending further enquiries."

The suspect is understood to have described himself as a terrorist on social media, according to reports, and to have followed the threat with further abuse when Farage celebrated Reform's local election gains. Detectives are reported to be examining whether he intended to target Reform UK MPs. No one has been charged, and the man is entitled to the presumption of innocence.

Ann Widdecombe's killing is now a counter-terrorism investigation

The threat against Farage lands days after the killing of Ann Widdecombe, the former Conservative minister and MEP who'd become one of Reform UK's best known faces. Widdecombe, 78, was found dead at her home on Dartmoor in Devon on Thursday 9 July with serious injuries.

Counter Terrorism Policing has since taken over the case. A man of 28, first held in Rotherham on suspicion of murder, was then arrested again on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.

Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor said "it is clear that this was a targeted attack", while police say they’re still working out the planning and the motive behind it. The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, told Parliament the suspect wasn’t known to Prevent, the Government’s anti-extremism programme. The man remains in custody. He hasn’t been charged.

Farage says he gets around 30 death threats a week and this is the first arrest

Farage has told the Daily Telegraph he's faced threats on social media "for years". He puts the current rate at roughly 30 death threats a week, and said this was the first time police had proactively acted on one, pointing to "three or four hundred similar posts from this year alone".

Reform UK says it has logged 1,577 threats against its people since February, including 597 death threats. That's the backdrop to a single arrest over a single post, and it's the number that tells the real story: the abuse aimed at Britain's insurgent right has become routine, and the response, so far, has not.

Reform's Zia Yusuf blames the media and wants every MP given full security

Reform has turned the killing and the threats into a demand. At a news conference, the party's home affairs chief, Zia Yusuf, called for every lawmaker who wants it to be given full security, and accused rival politicians and the media of stoking the hostility he says has produced death threats against Farage and other MPs.

"If Reform win the next general election, I will ensure that all members of parliament, of all parties, are provided with round the clock protection. We will also allocate significant new resources to protect former politicians still active in public life."

Yusuf said Farage had taken almost 600 death threats since February, and cast that as the reason the Reform leader accepted donations to pay for his own security, including the £5 million from a crypto investor his critics keep raising. "Those who question Nigel Farage's need for security should stop," he said.

Britain has lost MPs to attacks before. Conservative David Amess was stabbed to death at his constituency surgery in 2021 by a man inspired by Islamic State, and Labour's Jo Cox was murdered in 2016 during the Brexit campaign.

Reform still tops the national polls while the main parties duck Clacton

None of it has dented Reform nationally. It's still the biggest party in the polls, on about 25% and around seven points ahead of Labour, and voters still pick Farage over Sir Keir Starmer as the most capable prime minister, 18% to 16%.

Clacton is messier. Farage quit the seat last week to force a by-election on 13 August, betting the voters send him back while Parliament's standards committee looks at a reported £5 million gift he took from businessman Christopher Harborne before the 2024 election. Farage says it was a personal gift with no strings and that he didn't have to declare it. No finding has been made against him.

Then every major party refused to stand against him, which handed the role of his main rival to a joke candidate. Count Binface, real name Jonathan Harvey, campaigns wearing a bin on his head, and an Ipsos poll had 33% of Britons wanting him to take the seat against 21% for Farage. He's only the front runner because the other parties wouldn't show up.