Nigel Farage has doubled down on the controversial remarks he made after the Southport knife attack, claiming his comments were “perfectly reasonable”.
The Reform UK leader and MP for Clacton sparked outrage after he questioned “whether the truth is being withheld from us” after three girls died in a stabbing at a dance class in Merseyside.
He also baselessly claimed the attacker may have been on the security services’ watch list in the video he posted to social media on Tuesday.
His comments sparked immediate outrage online, but he stood by them.
On Wednesday afternoon, Farage told PA news agency: “I think it’s perfectly reasonable to ask what is happening to law and order in our country.
“And who are the perpetrators? Why? Very legitimate questions I was asking, and to conflate that with EDL [English Defence League] or anybody else, frankly, it’s desperate stuff.”
His pushback came after Brendan Cox, husband of murdered MP Jo Cox, slammed Farage’s original comments, saying they made him “nothing better than a Tommy Robinson in a suit”.
Robinson is the founder of the far-right, Islamophobic group the English Defence League (EDL), which is believed to have been behind the violent Southport riot which broke out on Tuesday.
Further far-right demonstrations took place in both London and Hartlepool last night.
Many of the protesters are believed to have been galvanised by a wave of social media misinformation wrongly claiming the Southport attacker was a refugee and had links to Islam.
One particular demonstration last night led to the arrest of more than 100 people outside Downing Street.
And, according to POLITICO, one protester was wearing a t-shirt with the words “Nigel Farage for Prime Minister and Tommy Robinson for Home Secretary” written on it.
The parliamentary commissioner for standards Daniel Greenberg issued a warning to MPs shortly after Farage’s comments.
“I do not comment on specific instances of statements made by particular MPs,” He told the i newspaper, but generally urged MPs to be careful “about the language, tone and veracity of what they say”.
Meanwhile, the former police counterterrorism chief Neil Basu directly called out Farage on Wednesday.
He said the MP had given the EDL “succor, undermining the police, creating conspiracy theories, and giving a false basis for the attacks on the police”.
According to the Guardian, Basu asked: “Has Nigel Farage condemned the violence? Has he condemned the EDL? Fomenting discord in society is what these people seem to exist for.”
Deputy PM Angela Rayner also told LBC that as an MP, Farage “must understand you have a level of responsibility, you are a community leader” and therefore must not “stoke up conspiracy theories”.