MP and leader of the Reform UK party, Nigel Farage, has questioned the transparency of UK police in regards to a mass stabbing which took place in Southport on Monday.
Reacting to the incident which claimed the lives of three little girls, Alice Dasilva Aguiar (9), Elsie Dot Stancombe (7), and Bebe King (6), Farage said, “I just wonder if the truth is being withheld from us,” commenting on how the incident is being treated as “non-terror related”.
“I don’t know the answer to that,” he said, adding that he thought it was “a fair and legitimate question.”
Farage said that the heckling of Prime Minister Keir Stamer as he laid wreaths close to the crime scene yesterday “shows you how unhappy the public are with the state of law and order” in the UK.
My response to the attack in Southport. pic.twitter.com/CCyjKpC7aQ
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) July 30, 2024
Keir Starmer is heckled by onlookers as he lays flowers at the scene of the Southport knife attack.@LBC @LBCNews pic.twitter.com/ZTPeWOL4Ew
— Liam Gotting (@GlobalGotting) July 30, 2024
He questioned whether the 17-year-old suspect, who is the Welsh born son of Rwandan immigrants, was being “monitored” by security services saying that some reports had suggested this while others “weren’t so sure”.
The husband of murdered UK MP Jo Cox accused Farage of “inciting a riot” with his comments.
Brendan Cox said on X, “Imagine your response to the death of three children being to peddle conspiracy theories that incite a riot.
“This is why Farage deserves the label far-right. Everyone who is associated with him, has normalised him or promoted him should be ashamed. This is vile.”
In an article for Unherd, British born Bangladeshi researcher Rakib Eshan critiqued what he called the police trying to manage the information given to the public saying that, “In an era of public institutions “managing” such events through the lens of “community relations control”, a lack of trust in the police, and the sorry decline in effective independent local reporters, a dangerous vacuum has been left for online conspiracists and outrage-generating agitators to exploit.”
Hundreds gather outside The Atkinson in Southport for a vigil after yesterday’s knife attack which killed three children and left five others in a critical condition in hospital.@LBC @LBCNews pic.twitter.com/qobbFualJc
— Liam Gotting (@GlobalGotting) July 30, 2024
Sometime after a peaceful gathering in which thousands are reported to have gathered in silence in Southport, clashes with police broke out where missiles were thrown at officers and a local mosque was targeted.
Disorder has broken out outside a mosque in #southport with riot police involved in scuffles with hundreds of people gathered on the streets outside. More @PA pic.twitter.com/L6z0aZScNP
— Patrick Hurst (@paddyhurst) July 30, 2024
Farage also questioned the decision of the UK police to also classify as “non-terror related” the stabbing of a uniformed British army officer in Gillingham, Kent on the 23rd of July last.
24-year-old Anthony Esan has been charged with attempted murder after the stabbing of 40-year-old Colonel Mark Teeton who was airlifted suffering from multiple stab wounds.
A 24-year-old man has been charged with attempted murder after a soldier was stabbed multiple times near a barracks in Kent.https://t.co/MiPt81gK1N
— S A M M Y woodhouse (@sammywoodhouse1) July 25, 2024