Watch moment Nigel Farage makes back door exit as Reform UK leader dodges protesters in Scotland
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
RATTLED Nigel Farage was forced to do a runner from a back door as noisy protesters wrecked his big trip north.
The controversial Reform leader was branded 'racist through and through' by a crew of loudspeaker wielding campaigners.
Sign up for the Politics newsletter
Sign up
3
Rattled Nigel Farage was forced to do a runner from a back door
Credit: Getty
3
He made a sneaky exit to avoid critics at the front
Credit: Getty
3
The Reform leader kicked off his day of campaigning at the Silver Darling restaurant
Credit: Getty
Cops were called out and his team were overhead discussing whether they should scrap the event at a luxury restaurant in Aberdeen.
It eventually went ahead but Farage made a sneaky exit through a back entrance to avoid his critics at the front.
He blamed 'inciteful' First Minister John Swinney for the clashes because he branded the Clacton MP racist over the weekend.
Farage said: 'We've not heard these chants in England now for a very, very long time.
'The First Minister Swinney was the one who started using the word in a deliberate and provocative way.
'We just want to live in a country where everybody is treated equally. Where everyone is treated on merit regardless of race, sexual identity or whatever else it may be.'
Farage kicked off his day of campaigning at the plush Silver Darling restaurant right on the harbour in the Granite City.
He revealed he chose there because he didn't think anywhere else would be safe.
Farage said: 'We're trying to protect ourselves from the howling mob that's been stirred up by the First Minister and others.
'We thought it better to do it here than on a high street.
Farage goads 'terrified' Starmer & says Tories are 'finished'
'At least half of the protesters outside are wearing face coverings. I don't think that should be allowed.'
Farage was joined by Reform's deputy leader Richard Tice for his trip to Aberdeen.
The pair welcomed local Conservative councillor Duncan Massey, who jumped ship from the Tories.
Farage kicked off by congratulating Aberdeen FC for their Scottish Cup win over Celtic.
But he revealed he's concerned about the future of the oil and gas industry and the impact its decline will have on the city.
He compared the industry and the fight for it's future to Brexit.
Farage said: 'The whole net zero debate is almost the next Brexit. Believe me the scales are falling off the eyes of the people.'
The whole event was almost overshadowed by the campaigners who turned up outside.
They began loudly chanting 'Farage we don't like you' and 'oh Nigel go home', as well as calling him 'racist scum'.
Their racket could be heard during Farage's media event.
A wall of cops were called in to stand between Farage and the protesters who were armed with placards and banners.
It's thought Farage's schedule was thrown into disarray by the gang as his security team frantically tried to get him out.
His motor eventually met him at the back door beside the bins.
But a fan turned up as he was being led out. She shouted: 'Love you Nigel. Vote Reform.'
Farage then headed off to campaign in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
3 hours ago
- Times
Hamilton goes to the polls after bitter by-election fight
John Swinney has urged voters to reject the 'gutter politics' of Nigel Farage as one of the most controversial by-election campaigns in Scottish political history draws to a close. In an election in which race became a dominant issue, after Reform UK repeatedly highlighted the ethnicity of the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, the SNP is the overwhelming bookmakers' favourite to hang on to the Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse seat. However, senior sources within all the major parties accept the result is highly unpredictable, with Farage's party emerging as a force in Scottish politics for the first time in a Holyrood election and a low turnout anticipated. • Reform winning a Scottish by-election? Unthinkable until now As party leaders made their last-minute pitch to voters, Swinney claimed that the election was a race between the SNP and Reform. 'Farage doesn't care about Scotland — he wants to cut our budget, undermine our parliament and introduce charges for the NHS,' Swinney said. 'Labour have given up on the campaign and have barely even bothered to defend their record of scrapping the winter fuel payment and cutting support for disabled people. 'So this by-election is a two-horse race between the SNP and Farage. People in Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse can unite behind the SNP and defeat the gutter politics of Nigel Farage.' However, Sarwar accused the nationalists of talking up Reform to 'distract from their own failures' and said it was only Labour that could beat the SNP. Polls open on Thursday at 7am and the result is expected in the early hours of Friday morning. The bookmakers believe that Reform is most likely to finish second and Labour third, in what would be a disaster for Sarwar's party. Labour insiders insist they are confident that their more sophisticated ground operation will be enough to see off Reform. Farage went to Larkhall on Monday, visiting a florist, a local butcher and a pub during a brief walkabout. The butcher he visited, Strachan Craft Butchers, then 'barred' Farage from the shop, where he had purchased a steak, after a backlash from some customers. In a Facebook post, the store claimed it had been ambushed by Farage, emphasising that it had not agreed to him visiting in advance. 'We cannot stop individuals visiting our shops, but this doesn't define us personally or professionally,' the business said. It signed off the message by adding: 'What a palava over one wee man' and added the hashtag '#Farageisbarred'. The by-election came about as the result of the death of the former SNP minister Christina McKelvie, from cancer, in March. At the 2021 elections McKelvie won with a majority of 4,582. Labour comfortably won all the seats in the area at last year's general election. • Who is Ross Lambie? Reform UK's candidate in crucial Hamilton by-election Sarwar, meanwhile, urged voters to elect a 'local champion' in his candidate, Davy Russell, who has faced criticism for poor media performances and dodging a televised debate. 'Time and time again, the SNP has failed Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse,' Sarwar said. 'From our overstretched NHS to our declining education system to our crisis-hit housing system, almost all of what is broken in Scotland is run by the SNP. 'They don't deserve to win, but only Scottish Labour can beat them. The SNP wants to talk up Reform to distract from their own failures, but Scots will see through the spin.'
New European
3 hours ago
- New European
The chancellor has the worst job in government
Rachel Reeves is undoubtedly doing the job at a difficult time. Fourteen years of Conservative government left both the public finances and public services in a parlous state. Fixing the former requires a tight grip of the purse strings, while fixing the latter necessarily means loosening them. To make things worse, the disastrously brief reign of Liz Truss showed the perils of testing whether markets would tolerate a chancellor taking a chance with the public finances – and the markets resoundingly said 'no'. It is a wonder that anyone wants to be chancellor – and have no doubt, hundreds of MPs would chop off several fingers, perhaps even their own, for a chance at the job – because it is surely the worst job in government. You are near the apex of political power in the UK, and your job is to say 'no' to all of your colleagues and then explain to the public why they can't have nice things. That leaves the chancellor walking a dangerously narrow path, trying to find enough money to deliver the improvements her government has promised the public, without allowing the public finances to tip into a fresh crisis. Thanks to changing the fiscal rules, next week she will announce some £100bn in new investment over the next five years – new roads, rail, infrastructure of all sorts, as well as new defence spending. But this is likely to be overshadowed by reports of fresh rounds of austerity in key spending departments in their day-to-day finances. Labour is fighting mightily to make sure no-one uses the 'austerity' word, but this will surely be in vain. Spending cuts by any other name land just as uneasily with Labour MPs who feel this was the opposite of what they came into politics to do. No-one should suggest Rachel Reeves has an easy job, nor that she's been doing nothing – but a week out from revealing her spending plans, she has certainly made it easier for those who can't see any sense in what she is doing. Speaking on Wednesday, Reeves recommitted herself to her fiscal rules, to not raising VAT, income tax or national insurance, and to promising that the major tax hikes of her first budget are a 'one off' – and by implication, she committed herself to budget cuts across the next few years, too. This is certain to cause despair in policymaking circles, as well as on her own benches. Reeves's plans barely meet her rules, to the point that even just six months after her first budget she had to scrabble to find billions more in cuts or extra spending to meet the updated forecasts. Even in normal times, Reeves could expect to have to do the same twice a year for the rest of parliament, but these are not normal times. For one, the US president attempts to upend the rules of world trade several times a month. Despite all this abnormality, Reeves is trying to govern like a peacetime chancellor during a period of steady growth. More than that, if politics is the art of the possible, Reeves seems determined to ensure the range of what is 'possible' is narrow: in the first year of a government with a landslide majority, she has ruled out any kind of major tax reforms. Council tax doesn't work, isn't fair, and hasn't been reassessed since 1991, but Labour won't touch it. National insurance is unfair and benefits rich pensioners at the expense of poor working age adults, but it won't be touched. The interaction of the income tax and benefit systems is a complicated mess, and again will be left unreformed. Social care has been punted until the next parliament. Labour will never have an opportunity like this to fix some of the big challenges facing the British state, and Reeves and Starmer are making a deliberate decision to duck every hard decision. That leaves them tinkering around the margins, trying to make the sums add up, without changing anything fundamental. That is a choice they are free to make, of course, but it is the exact same choice as was made by their predecessors in government, and is likely to turn out just as badly. There is a truism in Westminster that Labour has no shortage of policies, but no overarching vision. With her approach to the Treasury, Reeves is ensuring that no vision can emerge, either – ministers will have to dream small, and hope they can do better than the last government with good intentions, and a little more capital spending. If there is such a thing as Reevesism, it is putting your head down, trying to make no mistakes, and hoping something comes along to make things better. There are surely worse philosophies, but it is not the stuff of which history is made. Unless Reeves is very lucky, it will not be enough to keep her in the Treasury for five years, either.
The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
Brexit ‘sabotage' warning as new proposals clear Commons
New product safety proposals have moved closer to becoming law, sparking claims they could enable ministers to "sabotage" Brexit. MPs voted 264 to 99, a majority of 165, to approve the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill at its third reading. The bill provides the government with new powers to regulate the marketing and use of goods in the UK post-Brexit. However, TUV leader Jim Allister voiced concerns about specific references to " EU law" within the bill. He questioned whether this could allow ministers to act against the 2016 referendum result. Critics fear the legislation would force UK regulations to automatically align with changes in European Union law, granting ministers "inappropriately wide" powers to rewrite regulations. Mr Allister, the MP for North Antrim, told the Commons: 'There are aspects of this Bill which I think are democratically dangerous. 'Because this Bill gifts to government unbridled capacity to make regulations, with virtually no oversight from this elected House, on matters which touch not just upon the sanctity of our product production, but the sovereignty of this nation. 'This Bill, with little attempt at subtlety, is a vehicle which enables a Government, if so minded – and this one, I fear, might be – to sabotage Brexit in many ways. 'I stand to be corrected, but I don't think a single member of this Government voted for Brexit, and yet that is the settled and declared will of the people, greatest number of people who ever participated in a democratic vote in this nation. 'Yet in the Bill, we have the capacity, particularly through clause 2(7), to dynamically align all our regulations with those of the EU, and to do that without recourse to this House, at the whim of the executive. Whatever the subject matter, that surely is a most unhealthy situation.' Shadow business minister Dame Harriett Baldwin also said: 'As an independent nation, the UK we believe should set its own product regulations to foster innovation, support domestic industry, and not automatically align with EU rules which we no longer have any influence or help to shape.' Responding, business minister Justin Madders told the Commons: 'The powers in this Bill give the UK the flexibility to manage its own product regulatory framework. 'Part of this is of course making sure that the UK can respond to relevant developments in EU law, and this does not mean that the UK is beholden to EU changes, and all regulations will be subject to Parliament oversight.' He added that 'the reason why the Bill explicitly references the EU rather than other jurisdictions is because most of our product regulation is of course inherited from EU law'.
