After being accused of siding with sick paedophiles like Jimmy Savile in a growing dispute over an online safety bill, Nigel Farage angrily demanded an apology from a top Labour minister.
Peter Kyle also accused the Reform UK leader of being on the side of ‘extreme pornographers’ over the party’s promise to scrap the Online Safety Act over claims it suppresses free speech.
The shocking outburst happened as the Technology Secretary defended the regulation, which went into force last Friday and mandates that search engines and social media platforms take precautions to keep kids away from pornographic and other hazardous information.
Critics, including Mr Farage, claim that it is being used to stifle free speech by blocking people from seeing some political statements online, especially those by right-wing figures.
But Mr Kyle told Sky News he had seen no evidence that the Online Safety Act ‘goes too far’.
He added: ‘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.’
Mr Farage labelled the comments ‘disgusting’ and demanded an apology. But Mr Kyle later doubled down on his remarks.
Appearing on GB News, the minister said: ‘There is no definitive grey area about this.
‘Either you’re on the side of predators and paedophiles, as Nigel Farage is, because he wants them to have more access to our children online than you are with the Labour Party, where we are making sure we are holding the tech companies to account to prevent that kind of access, to keep children safer, and we can do so also at the time of also reinforcing freedom.’
In a later broadcast from Reform UK’s London headquarters, Mr Farage played back Peter Kyle’s comments, adding: ‘Well, this is so absolutely disgusting that it’s almost beyond belief. Just how low can the Labour Government sink in its desperation?
‘Yes, of course they’re in trouble. They’re well behind us in the opinion polls. But frankly, to say that I would do anything that would in any way aid and abet people like Jimmy Savile, it’s so below the belt it’s almost not true.’
Former BBC television presenter and DJ Savile, who died aged 84 in 2011, is thought to have been one of Britain’s most prolific paedophiles, whose crimes went undiscovered or unchallenged for decades.
Asked to explain his remarks, Mr Kyle said: ‘Nigel Farage is on the side of turning the clock back to the time when strange adults, strangers can get in touch via messaging apps with children.’
Reform UK would scrap the Online Safety Act after labelling it a ‘dystopian’ infringement of free speech, the party announced yesterday.
During the press conference, Mr Farage acknowledged that his party did not have ‘a perfect answer’ for what could replace the Act, but said his party had ‘more access to some of the best tech brains, not just in the country but in the world’ and would ‘make a much better job of it’.
Former party chairman Zia Yusuf said the Act, intended to reduce online harm, did ‘absolutely nothing to protect children’ but worked to ‘suppress freedom of speech’ and ‘force social media companies to censor anti-government speech’.
Addressing a press conference at Reform’s headquarters in Westminster, Mr Yusuf said: ‘We will repeal this Act as one of the first things a Reform government does.’
After it was revealed that X had prevented Tory minister Katie Lam from giving a stirring speech on grooming gangs in Parliament this year, the intervention was made.
Meanwhile, footage of arrests during asylum seeker hotel protests was also blocked ‘due to local laws’, according to the social media platform.
Following a demonstration outside the Britannia Hotel in Leeds over the weekend, X users reported that the site blocked arrest footage.
They were shown the message: ‘Due to local laws, we are temporarily restricting access to this content until X estimates your age.’
Last week, the law changed to require websites to check that users are over 18 before permitting them to access ‘harmful’ material such as pornography or suicide material.
Failing to comply with the latest rules could incur fines of up to £18 million or 10 per cent of a firm’s global turnover.
Questioned about concerns the law has seen posts wrongly withdrawn from social media, the Technology Secretary told Sky News: ‘I have not seen any evidence that the Bill goes too far at all.’
He added: ‘I will be monitoring the impact, but I have not so far seen anything that gives me concern for anyone about free speech grounds.
‘We have very strident protections for free speech in this country.
‘This is not about free speech. This is about hateful, violent, extreme, misogynistic and pornographic material finding its way into children’s feeds.’
I worry that efforts to damage Nigel Farage’s reputation might succeed, as they did with Jeremy Corbyn.
We can see what Labour is attempting to accomplish, and it may succeed since the harm is done once the comments are made public.
I would like to believe that the general people are smart enough to distinguish between criticism that is slandering someone else and criticism that is sincere and fair. The problem is that people follow each other down the steep hill like sheep.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 