Calls have been for Nigel Farage to be hauled in front of the MPs to face questions about Reform UK’s “assault on the free press” after the party threatened to banThe Independent from attending events if it did not change a critical story.
It comes afterThe Independent’s political editor David Maddox reported that he had taken calls from a member of Reform’s leadership and an aide to Mr Farage warning that the publication would be banned from all events if it did not alter its coverage.
Last week, The Nottingham Post accused Reform UK of a “massive attack on local democracy” after a local council leader effectively banned the authority from engaging with the newspaper and its website.
The outlet said they had been told by Nottinghamshire County Council’s Reform administration that it would no longer engage with them or the team of BBC-funded local democracy journalists the paper manages.
The Liberal Democrats dubbed the developments “blatant hypocrisy” after Mr Farage criticised free speech in the UK and compared it to North Korea when giving evidence to the US House judiciary committee in Washington on Wednesday.
Liberal Democrat culture, media and sport spokesperson Max Wilkinson MP said: “Nigel Farage needs to be dragged in front of the [House of Commons Media] Select Committee at the earliest opportunity and be held to account for Reform’s assault on the free press.
“The press is the cornerstone of our democracy and it is right that politicians submit themselves to their scrutiny. For Farage’s party to act this way is a chilling example of what could happen to our proud democratic traditions if Reform ever got into power.
“He says the UK is becoming like North Korea while ruling over a party that treats the media increasingly like a despot would. British people and our free press shouldn’t have to put up with that blatant hypocrisy.
“After his MAGA bootlicking tour across the pond and describing the country he professes to love as ‘awful’ maybe he should crawl out of Trump’s pocket and face some accountability here in the UK.”
The Reform leader was branded a “Putin-loving free speech imposter and Trump sycophant” by a US congressman on Wednesday who launched a severe critique of the Reform UK leader before the Briton gave evidence to the Washington DC committee.
Democrat representative Jamie Raskin urged voters in Britain to “think twice” before voting for Mr Farage, accusing him of only protecting free speech he agrees with.
Giving evidence, Mr Farage said he wanted to bring Lucy Connolly, who was jailed for stirring up racial hatred against asylum seekers in the aftermath of the Southport murders last year, to Washington as “living proof of what can go wrong” with free speech, as well as sensationally comparing Britain to North Korea.
“It doesn’t give me any great joy to be sitting in America and describing the really awful authoritarian situation that we have now sunk into”, he said.
Mr Farage also warned that the UK’s Online Safety Act “will damage trade between our countries, threaten free speech across the West because of the knock-on rollout effects of this legislation from us or from the European Union”.
Reform UK has been contacted for comment.
