MAN ARRESTED OVER SOCIAL MEDIA THREAT TO SHOOT NIGEL FARAGE

The Metropolitan Police arrested a man in his 20s on Tuesday on suspicion of publishing a threatening message on X directed at Nigel Farage. The post, made during May's election period, stated "I am going to shoot you in the head if you win." Parliamentary authorities reported the message to police on 8 May, and detectives obtained the user's contact information from the social media platform before executing the arrest at a residential address in south London. The man was released on bail pending further inquiries after being held in custody overnight.

Farage told the Telegraph that this represents the first occasion on which police have proactively acted on a social media post threatening him. He claimed to have submitted multiple reports of similar threats to police over several years, stating he had reported "three or four hundred similar posts from this year alone" and had previously been told such posts did not meet the threshold for police action. He called for increased funding for politician security. Several individuals have previously been convicted of sending threats to kill or rape MPs, including threats directed at Stella Creasy, Jess Phillips, Ed Miliband and Jess Asato. Last year, a man found guilty of threatening to kill Farage in a TikTok video had entered the UK on a small boat.

The arrest follows the death of Ann Widdecombe, a former MP and Reform UK spokesperson, last week, with police investigating possible political motives for that incident. Zia Yusuf, Reform UK's home affairs spokesperson, stated there was an "overwhelming sense of fear amongst the Reform MPs" in the wake of Widdecombe's death.