Nigel Farage has reported Green Party leader Zack Polanski to the Metropolitan Police In the UK, after he shared a social media post featuring a guillotine alongside the message: "We're only making plans for Nigel."
The image, shared with Polanski's 700,000 Instagram followers as part of a series of photos from a Green Party rally in Bristol on July 26, showed a man wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a guillotine graphic and the slogan referencing the 1979 XTC song. Farage condemned the post as an apparent threat and said he had referred it to both the Metropolitan Police and the London Assembly, where Polanski serves as a member. "It is beyond belief," Farage told The Telegraph. "It is inciteful and I will be demanding that Mr Polanski is arrested. If I had done that, I would have been arrested and I would deserve to be."
The controversy comes less than three weeks after Reform UK's immigration and justice spokesman Ann Widdecombe was murdered after being struck 21 times in the head with a hammer at her Devon home. Joshua Kerry, 28, has since been charged with her murder. Home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf said: "To do this just two weeks after our friend Ann was murdered is staggering. This is incitement to murder and it should be treated as such by the police."
A spokesman for Polanski said: "After attending a public event, Zack accepted a request to collaborate on a post with several images. Once this image was brought to his attention, he immediately unshared the post. He unequivocally does not support this type of dangerous message." The socialist Green Party is surging in Britain's polls after unveiling a raft of new far-left policies. Reform, meanwhile, has dramatically increased security for its MPs and senior figures amid fears of further attacks. The party said its politicians now face constant harassment and threats, with Farage revealing he has received nearly 600 death threats this year alone.
Former Government adviser on political violence Lord Walney called for serious consequences. "There must be serious consequences for Zack Polanski after he shared material implying the assassination of another politician," he said. "This would be sickening and unacceptable at any time but it is even more serious in the present environment in which a senior Reform member has been brutally killed."
Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden also urged politicians to be more responsible online. "I think we've all got a duty to be careful about what they post," he said. "People can make mistakes. It's for the police to decide if there's any further action to be taken." The Metropolitan Police confirmed it had received a third-party complaint. "On Monday, 27 July, we received a third-party report relating to an image shared on social media," a spokesman said. "We take reports of this nature extremely seriously, and officers are conducting enquiries into the matter."
It comes after Labour MP Kate Osborne accused Reform UK and GB News of helping create a climate that led to Saturday's deadly Islamist terror attack at Berlin Pride. Farage branded the comments "dangerous, inciteful and deeply ignorant," warning they risked putting Reform politicians in further danger.
