Labour reignites row with Nigel Farage as Home Office minister Jess Phillips says Reform UK is 'empowering modern-day Jimmy Saviles'

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

Labour has reignited a row with Nigel Farage by claiming Reform UK's pledge to repeal online safety laws risks empowering 'modern-day Jimmy Saviles'.
Home Office minister Jess Phillips launched a fresh attack on Reform's promise to scrap the Online Safety Act.
She accused Reform leader Mr Farage of putting 'clicks for his monetised social media accounts' ahead of children's safety.
Ms Phillips, minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, also backed her Labour colleague Peter Kyle following his row with Mr Farage last week.
Mr Kyle, the Technology Secretary, said Mr Farage was putting himself on the side of 'extreme pornographers' and people like Savile by opposing the Online Safety Act.
In a furious spat, Mr Farage demanded an apology from Mr Kyle, saying his remarks about vile sex predator Savile were 'so absolutely disgusting that it's almost beyond belief'.
Under rules that came into effect on 25 July, online platforms including social media sites and search engines must take steps to prevent children accessing harmful content such as pornography or material that encourages suicide.
But Mr Farage has warned the Online Safety Act 'poses the biggest threat to freedom of speech in this country in our lifetimes'.
Reform has pledged to scrap the legislation if it wins the next general election, while Mr Farage has also urged people to sign a petition demanding the Act is repealed.
Writing in The Times, Ms Phillips said: 'Farage said it's the biggest threat to freedom of speech in our lifetimes.
'My colleague Peter Kyle said he was siding with modern-day Jimmy Saviles preying on children online.'
She said she would like to speak to Mr Farage about 'one of those modern-day Saviles, Alexander McCartney'.
McCartney, who posed as a teenage girl to befriend young females from across the globe on Snapchat and other platforms before blackmailing them, 'just needed a computer' to reach his targets, Ms Phillips wrote.
Believed to be one of the world's most prolific online offenders, McCartney abused at least 70 children online and drove one girl to suicide.
Ms Phillips said the Online Safety Act exists to try to provide a 'basic minimum of protection, and make it harder for paedophiles to prey on children at will'.
She said police have told her that paedophile networks use 'normal websites where their parents assume they're safe' to coerce and blackmail young people.
'Perhaps Nigel Farage doesn't worry about that - there's no political advantage in it, and no clicks for his monetised social media accounts. But I do,' she added.
'I worry about what it means now and what it will mean when boys reared on a diet of ultraviolent online child abuse are adult men having children of their own.
'I can't ignore that, neither can Peter Kyle, and, most importantly, nor can millions of parents across the country.
'I defy Nigel Farage to tell me what any of that has to do with free speech.
'I defy him to meet even one parent who has lost a daughter to suicide because she was being blackmailed online and tell them that is just the price of civil liberties. Maybe he'd feel differently after that kind of meeting, or maybe he wouldn't care.'
Her comments echo those of Mr Kyle, who said last week: '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.'
Mr Farage demanded an apology from the Technology Secretary, who refused to withdraw the remarks.
In his own newspaper article last week, the Reform leader said of the new online rules: 'These apparently well-intentioned checks enforce mandatory ID scans, not just for porn sites, but also for mainstream social media where political or any other content is deemed potentially 'harmful'.
'This erosion of privacy could make it easier to identify online critics of government policy on migration and much else.'