The Reform UK leader has once again been the focus of a new attack by the Labour Party.
Nigel Farage will not dignify Labour with a response after the party accused him of supporting the online misogynist Andrew Tate. A new Labour attack ad, published this morning, sees the Reform UK leader posing with Mr Tate, citing his claim that the influencer is an “important voice” for men.
Last night Angela Rayner claimed that Reform’s promise to scrap the Online Safety Act would set back efforts to tackle so-called revenge porn. The deputy Prime Minister argued that Mr Farage “risks failing a generation of young women with his dangerous and irresponsible plans to scrap online safety laws. Scrapping safeguards and having no viable alternative plan in place to halt the floodgates of abuse that could open is an appalling dereliction of duty.”
Nigel Farage is under personal fire again from Labour (Image: Getty / Nigel Farage)
Mr Farage’s comments on Andrew Tate are the subject of a new Labour attack ad (Image: Labour Party)
A Reform UK source told the Express that Mr Farage would not dignify Labour’s attack ad with a response, following spurious allegations about siding with child predators such as Jimmy Savile.
The source close to Mr Farage said the attack was “desperate stuff”.
Parroting Michelle Obama, they added: “When they go low, we will go high.”
Speaking on the Strike It Big podcast last year, Mr Farage argued Andrew Tate “was a very important voice for an emasculated…”
“You three guys, you are all 25, you are all kind of being told you can’t be blokes, you can’t do laddish, fun, bloke things … that masculinity is something we should look down upon, something we should frown upon. It’s like the men are becoming feminine and the women are becoming masculine and it’s a bit difficult to tell these days who’s what.
“And Tate fed into that by saying, ‘Hang on, what’s wrong with being a bloke? What’s wrong in male culture? What’s wrong in male humour?’ He fed into those things. His was a campaign of raising awareness. His was a campaign of giving people, perhaps, a bit of confidence at school or whatever it was to speak up.”
Reform’s Laila Cunningham slammed Angela Rayner’s claims about women’s safety online (Image: Getty)
This weekend it was revealed that No. 10 has recently assembled a dedicated “attack team” to focus on Reform UK, being directed by the PM’s right-hand man Morgan McSweeney.
The Spectator reported that the attack unit will focus more on the people around Nigel Farage and Reform UK such as advisors, rather than the party leader himself.
While Mr Farage is refusing to acknowledge Labour’s Andrew Tate attack, Reform has slammed Ms Rayner’s claims around women’s safety.
Laila Cunningham, a high profile female Reform councillor, hit back: “You don’t protect women by silencing speech. You protect them by securing borders, enforcing the law, and locking up actual criminals, and that is exactly what a Reform government would do.
“Women are more unsafe than ever before thanks to Labour… Reform will always prioritise prosecuting abuse but will never let women’s safety be hijacked to justify censorship.”
Ms Cunningham also challenged Jess Philips, the minister for women and safeguarding, to a debate on the Online Safety Act.
Labour warns that “almost a million young women have experienced intimate image abuse in England and Wales, including threats and sharing of their intimate images”.
It added: “The Act protects women and children and makes the sharing of intimate images without consent a ‘priority offence’, the most serious class of online crime.”
Ms Rayner said: “It’s time for Farage to tell women and girls across Britain how he would keep them safe online.”
