Reform Party leader and British MP Nigel Farage has warned that Keir Starmer poses an existential threat to free speech across the United Kingdom.
In an interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, Farage was asked about his response to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s brutal crackdown on his political opponents following a series of violent protests against Islamism and mass immigration that have swept the UK in recent weeks.
Farage explained.
Nobody should use any social media platform to genuinely spread hate or incitement to violence. And that free speech rule I think all of us would support and agree with.
But what we should be allowed to do on social media is to speculate, to ask questions, to try and put facts out that wake up the rest of the community. And when you are engaged in something like that, you can never ever guarantee what you say is 100% true. Starmer, by cracking down on that, poses the biggest threat to free speech we’ve seen in our history.
The Clacton MP was asked whether he fears for his own freedom as a result of the crackdown, which has seen hundreds of people arrested and imprisoned without having engaged in any acts of violence.
He responded:
Yes. I mean, after the murder — after the triple murder of those poor, sweet little girls — a few hours went by, and there was huge speculation online about this man: Was he an illegal immigrant? Was he an Islamist?
No one knew the truth. And I simply asked on X — I simply asked, Did this man have a record? Is he somebody that the security services were watching? [The] answer there came, none.
Then after the riots happened, you’ve got the whole establishment saying that I encouraged rioting. Well, I mean, all I did was to say, Please, tell us the truth.
Funny enough, if they had told us the truth, the rioting would not have been anything like as bad as it was. And the authorities need to wake up to an online world.
So, yes, I am currently coming under serious assault, and many of the campaigners on the left are publicly saying that I should be arrested simply for asking to know the truth about the murderer. So, yes, I’m worried.
Meanwhile, the fight for free speech and opposition to government censorship continues in Britain, America, and the wider world.