
Technology Minister accuses Nigel Farage of being on the side of 'Jimmy Savile' in online safety row
The comments were made while Kyle was defending the act and the recently implemented age verification checks which have come in to force on websites hosting harmful or adult content.
Asked about Farage's criticism of the new laws and promise to scrap them should he come in to power, Kyle said: 'I see that Nigel Farage is already saying that he's going to overturn these laws. So you know, we have people out there who are extreme pornographers, peddling hate, peddling violence. Nigel Farage is on their side.
'Make no mistake about it, if people like Jimmy Savile were alive today, he'd be perpetrating his crimes online. And Nigel Farage is saying that he's on their side.'
Kyle initially made the comments speaking to Sky News, with Farage branding them disgusting and calling on the minister to apologise.
Former Reform Party Chairman Zia Yusuf also expressed outrage, describing Kyle's remarks as 'one of the most outrageous and disgusting things a politician has said in the political arena".
He added: 'Talking about Jimmy Savile in that way does nothing other than denigrate the victims of Jimmy Savile.'
Despite this, Kyle refused to apologise when pushed to do so in a later interview with ITV News, standing by his earlier comments.
"If you're against the Online Safety Act and want to overturn it you are on the side of predators and pedophiles," Kyle insisted.
"Nigel Farage is therefore on the side of predators and pedophiles and he needs to be called out for it."
"Nigel Farage is therefore on the side of predators and pedophiles," Peter Kyle insisted.
Concerns had been raised from both Farage's party and other MPs, as well as the public, that in recent days there has been a large spike in the download of VPNs, services that allow users to bypass age verification checks by pretending they are browsing from another country.
Some are concerned rather than protect children, the new laws are too easily avoided and may end up pushing children to darker corners of the internet.
Reform UK have also voiced specific objection to what they see as an attack on free speech.
On Monday Reform announced their policy would be to scrap the entire act, describing it as a 'dystopian' infringement of free speech.
Addressing a press conference at Reform's London headquarters, Zia Yusuf claimed the act did 'absolutely nothing to protect children' but worked to 'suppress freedom of speech' and 'force social media companies to censor anti-government speech".
The prime minister denied these laws had anything to do with censoring free speech when questioned about them during a joint press conference with US President Donald Trump.
'We're not censoring anyone," said Starmer.
'We've got some measures which are there to protect children, in particular, from sites like suicide sites.'
He added: 'I personally feel very strongly that we should protect our young teenagers, and that's what it usually is, from things like suicide sites. I don't see that as a free speech issue, I see that as child protection.'
Under rules that came into effect on July 25, online platforms such as social media sites and search engines must take steps to prevent children accessing harmful content such as pornography or material that encourages suicide.
This includes introducing age verification for websites and ensuring algorithms do not work to harm children by pushing such content towards them when online, for example.
Failing to comply with the new rules could incur fines of up to £18 million or 10% of a firm's global turnover, whichever is greater.
On Tuesday a petition on the government's website to repeal the act stood close to 400,000 signatories and as such will be scheduled for debate by MPs.

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The Independent
18 minutes ago
- The Independent
‘Why we had a revolution': US politician in heated dustup with Farage in London over free speech and Trump
A confrontation between a Maryland congressman and the head of the UK's Reform Party grew heated on Wednesday as the right-wing party leader refused to hear any criticism of Donald Trump uttered in his presence. Rep. Jamie Raskin and other Democrats were in London this week as part of a bipartisan congressional delegation to discuss the Online Safety Act. Members of both major US parties believe the act violates First Amendment protections for US companies and unfairly targets American tech firms by extension. Raskin is one of the Democratic Party's most skilled communicators in the House and was an impeachment manager during the second trial of Donald Trump in 2021. A longtime foe of the US president, Raskin's opening remarks touched on the Trump administration's wide-ranging assault on the First Amendment, which top officials have contended (falsely) does not apply to noncitizens, including legal green card holders. Those remarks drew a furious response to the congressman, according to Raskin, from Nigel Farage — leader of the U.K.'s conservative Reform party who, in 2024, was a vocal supporter of the third Trump campaign as he'd been for the president's two prior runs. 'We're not here to talk about Donald Trump,' Raskin quoted Farage as scolding him. According to the congressman, the conversation devolved further from there, with Farage labeling him 'pig-headed.' The Maryland Democrat said he responded: 'This is why we had a revolution against you guys.' The congressman went on to tell Politico that Democrats believed there were good and bad aspects to the Online Safety Act, and were eager to discuss it with UK lawmakers. 'We thought there were some very good things in the Online Safety Act, and there might be some problematic things,' he told the news outlet. Of Farage, he added: 'I think the intervention of Democrats who don't have a dog in that fight was maybe too much for him to handle.' A handful of other Democratic representatives confirmed the exchange to Politico. Two of them, Reps. Jasmine Crockett and Eric Swalwell, labeled the Reform Party chief a 'manbaby' in their own statements to the outlet. 'This manbaby was not feeling it. … He was gonna pigeonhole the conversation into only things that he wanted to discuss, and anything else was gonna be shut down, because that's what free speech, I guess, looks like to him,' Crockett told Politico. Swalwell added that Farage appeared 'unhinged' in the meeting. Raskin's ties to the Revolutionary War are more direct than those of his colleagues. His district includes Montgomery County, a jurisdiction named after Revolutionary War general Richard Montgomery, who was Irish-American. Maryland, in general, retains a number of town, city and county names closely tied to British monarchs and aristocrats. The congressman even quipped to Politico that one of the Republican members of the delegation told him afterwards he enjoyed Raskin's quip at Farage. Raskin underwent treatment for cancer in 2023 after being diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell Lymphoma. He was one of a successive chain of Democrats who sought in various bids to challenge the party's 'old guard' for leadership in the Trump era; in 2024, he launched a bid for the top-ranking spot on the Judiciary committee against Jerry Nadler. In a sign of the strength of his ties to both party leadership and progressives, the elder Nadler stepped aside and Raskin took over with support of Nancy Pelosi backing his leadership bid. Separately on Wednesday the Maryland congressman announced a lawsuit against the Trump administration for blocking legally-permitted congressional oversight visits of ICE detention facilities, joined by a dozen other House Democrats.


The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
Online Safety Act designed to protect kids has ended up becoming a blunt tool to censor free speech
Self-harm Act SOCIAL media is infested with dangerous content such as self-harm videos. So it's understandable that ministers should wish to protect children from such vile material on the internet. But the Online Safety Act designed to protect kids has ended up becoming a blunt tool to censor free speech. New laws introduced last week put a ban on 'legal but harmful' material. But it is so wide a term that it risks morphing into sinister state control. The new Act has already led to users on X being barred from viewing images from anti-immigration protests by anonymous moderators. It's only a matter of time before any kind of political content ends up being deleted for unexplained, anti-democratic reasons. The Act was sold as being necessary to prevent vulnerable children seeing content related to the likes of suicide, eating disorders and pornography. But an 1,800 per cent increase in downloads of VPN blockers — used to disguise the country of origin of internet users — shows that any tech-savvy teen can get round basic age verification checks. In the cause of banning hurty words, ministers have instead ended up curbing freedom of expression while doing nothing to improve safety. The real abusers — who mainly operate from abroad anyway — will carry on with their evil activity. Big changes come to PornHub and a dozen other XXX sites 1 Boom 'n' bust IT is simply unsustainable for Britain to be able to absorb a population explosion as massive as the one we have been subjected to in the last two years. Numbers in England and Wales grew by 706,881 in 2024 and 821,210 in 2023. That has taken the total to nearly 62million. What preparations did the Tories — who shamefully lost control of immigration in these years — make for such a fundamental change? Absolutely none. With a housing shortage, an NHS in crisis and a daily battle to keep the lights on and the water pumping, Labour must get numbers down. Migration on this scale — especially when so many are low-skilled workers — is ruinously bad for the economy. It ends up costing more to house and look after them than they contribute. No one voted for any of this. Pride in Ozzy BIRMINGHAM did its favourite son Ozzy Osbourne proud yesterday. The old showman would have loved the huge turnout for him in his native city. No doubt looking down from his black throne in rock heaven, Ozzy will have had a message for his many fans: No more tears.


The Sun
2 hours ago
- The Sun
Tech sec Peter Kyle should apologise for calling Farage a nonce-enabler – then make the move that WILL protect our kids
OUR wildly unpopular Government has decided to get down and dirty. Rather than come up with ideas to make our lives a bit bloody easier, it has resorted to disgusting smears against opponents. 8 8 The Onlife Safety Act — a genuinely awful piece of legislation — seeks to persuade hi-tech companies to be a bit more rigorous about who they show their porn and other nasty images to. It will not work. Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, has said as much. And he pledged to repeal the act if Reform wins the next election. Which is looking increasingly likely. This provoked Technology Secretary Peter Kyle to suggest that Farage was 'on the side of' Jimmy Savile. An insane accusation and one Kyle has refused to withdraw. Kyle's actual words were these: 'Make no mistake about it, if people like Jimmy Savile were alive today, he would be perpetrating his crimes online — and Nigel Farage is saying that he is on their side, not the side of children.' What an odious comment — but it was repeated a little later by the dim-witted Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander. So what Labour is saying, in short, is this: if you disagree with their stupid Onlife Safety Act, you're little better than a nonce. You're a nonce enabler. Nigel Farage was rightly furious. Here's the thing. The act is a disgrace. It hands the power to hi-tech companies and penalises the small online sites. And it will do little or nothing to stop kids getting hold of gruesome images. It will also erode freedom of speech. And increase censorship for adults. It is a chilling piece of legislation. And it has already been rubbished by both the Left, in The New Statesman, and the Right, in the Daily Telegraph. Tech Secretary left 'shocked to the core' after visiting crack team hunting down child abuse images There is, however, one failsafe way to make sure kids are safe from revolting images. Stop children having smartphones. Ban them from kids 16 years and younger. Something similar is to be tried in Australia, where under-16s will be banned from social media later this year. Labour says it is not going to do that. Peter Kyle has rejected the proposal. And you know why he's done that, don't you? It's because he, like the ludicrous Heidi Alexander, is a nonce enabler. He would actively help Jimmy Savile nonce the kids. There, how do you like that, Mr Kyle? That's what happens when you crawl into the political gutter. You meet horrible people like me. People who are prepared to stick the boot in and not worry. Nonce enablers People who will say stuff like this: if Kyle opposes my bill to ban smartphones from kids he is worse than Rosemary West and Hitler combined. And he probably hangs around infant schools with a bag of sherbet lemons and some puppies. You see, Kyle? It isn't only disgusting to make such accusations. It's also totally and utterly ludicrous. But it's particularly ludicrous and, indeed, hypocritical when it comes from Labour. 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