A MAN has been charged after objects were hurled at Nigel Farage while he was on the election campaign trail yesterday.
The Reform UK leader, 60, was pelted by a man in Barnsley town centre on Tuesday while on an open-top battle bus for his party.
PANigel Farage dodged the objects while on an open-top bus in Barnsley yesterday[/caption]
PAA man was pictured appearing to throw objects at Farage[/caption]
X/@Nigel_FarageThe man was caught on video[/caption]
Farage shared the footage to his X account yesterdayX/@Nigel_Farage
Cops yesterday said they had arrested a man over the alleged attack.
Josh Greally, 28, has this morning been charged with using threatening behaviour.
Footage showed Farage trying to duck for cover as objects appeared to be thrown at him.
The politician said cops had warned him against doing a walkabout in Barnsley yesterday morning – which is why he was on a bus.
Farage told The Sun yesterday: “Yeah, it was pretty nasty at Barnsley.
“Thank God for the local police, who said to me, look, you know, we were on a big open-top double-decker bus.
“I was going to get off and walk through the main square in Barnsley.
“The police did tip us off very early, that will not be a good idea. Yeah, a sort of mob came along.
“By the way, protest is allowed. Protest is part of that democratic process that I was talking to you about earlier.
“But protest needs to be within certain bounds and certain reason.”
He labelled it a “violent” and “deliberate” protest.
He continued: “You might agree with me or disagree with me, that’s fine. I don’t mind if someone shouted abuse in the street at me, I’ll probably shout it back, that’s fine.
“But when it comes to violence, that actually poses a real threat to the whole democratic process.
“That was pretty nasty this morning. Had I got off that bus, I’d probably be in hospital. That’s how nasty this is.”
Footage from the top of the bus shows Farage rush down the steps out of sight after the attack.
Farage was heading through Barnsley town centre when he was allegedly attackedX/@Nigel_Farage
Dean AtkinsA man, 28, was arrested by cops[/caption]
PACops warned Farage not to join the open top bus on Tuesday[/caption]
EPAFarage had banana milkshake lobbed at him last week[/caption]
Members of Reform UK cheered and clapped as the man was cuffed.
South Yorkshire Police yesterday said: “We have arrested a 28-year-old man on suspicion of public order offences following disorder in Barnsley town centre today.
“It is believed that the man threw objects from a nearby construction area.
“A suspect was quickly detained and remains in police custody.”
It comes just one week after Farage was splattered in the face with a milkshake in an unrelated event.
Victoria Thomas-Bowen, 25, was arrested after allegedly chucking the banana drink at Farage in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, on June 4.
The OnlyFans model was later charged with assault by beating and criminal damage.
Thomas-Bowen is due to appear at Colchester Magistrates’ Court on July 2.
It was the second time the Brexit champion has been swilled – having been covered head-to-toe in Newcastle in 2019.
TONY PARSONS
WHEN Nigel Farage had a milkshake thrown in his face by some smirking pea-brain, it went down a storm in the loony bin of Labour’s Left.
“A work of art!” crowed one Corbynista commentator.
The social media platforms of Stand Up To Racism — president, Diane Abbott — were awash with emojis weeping with helpless laughter.
And you can’t help but wonder.
Would a milkshake thrown in, say, Diane Abbott’s face be equally amusing? Of course not. That would be outrageous!
But we have been here before.
“I’m thinking, why bother with a milkshake when you could get some battery acid?” quipped comedian Jo Brand on BBC Radio 4 in 2019.
The BBC later ruled that Brand’s “joke” about throwing battery acid in a politician’s face “went beyond what was appropriate” — no kidding! — but “was not intended to be taken seriously”.
But in a country where politicians of both major parties have been murdered in recent years, Brand’s comments sounded like an incitement to violence.
In a land where the memory of Labour’s Jo Cox — shot three times in 2016 — and the Conservatives’ David Amess, stabbed in 2021, is still raw, making light of a physical assault on any politician should turn the stomach.
It is the pious hypocrisy that stinks.
It is the craven double-standards.
I carry no candle for Reform UK.
Every vote for Nigel Farage’s protest party is an act of national self-harm. Reform will reform nothing.
Your vote for Reform means that we will be ruled for five years — or ten — by Keir Starmer and his high-taxing, knee-taking comrades.
But the bullying of Farage sickens me.
This ritual humiliation is counter- productive.
Is throwing a milkshake in Farage’s face meant to make him crawl away?
Not going to happen, comrade.
That milkshake has now sealed Farage’s success with voters.
The bookies — always the most reliable political pundits — say Farage is odds-on to become the MP for Clacton at the General Election.
And with Reform neck-and-neck with the Tories in the polls, Farage can afford to laugh it off — cheerfully raising a McDonald’s milkshake in salute, as if it was a pint of his beloved IPA.
I believe the rise of Reform will be harmful for this country.
If the patriotic, pro-business Right is divided, the patriotic, pro-business Right surely will certainly be defeated.
If, as the polls suggest, all those disappointed working-class former Tory voters defect to Reform, then they will soon be living under a Labour Government that they will despise with all their hearts.
I don’t think Reform are going to bury the Conservative Party at this election or any other.
Because I suspect that the talent base of Reform is wafer-thin and their motley crew of colourful candidates will look a lot less appealing in close-up.
But that pea-brain’s milkshake has ensured that Reform will have at least one MP.