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Louise Thomas
Editor
Nigel Farage has pledged to visit Donald Trump in the US to stand in the wake of his assassination attempt.
The Reform UK leader referenced rocks and a milkshake being thrown at him during the general election campaign as he spoke of his fears that political discourse is becoming “more violent” across the world.
The Republican former president was shot in the ear about 15 minutes after he took to the stage at the campaign event in Pennsylvania on Saturday night.
He dropped to the ground and was swarmed by his security detail, who rushed him offstage to a waiting motorcade.
Mr Trump could be seen raising his fist in the air and mouthing the words: “Fight, fight, fight.”
After the shooting, Mr Trump’s likely Democrat opponent in the forthcoming US election, President Joe Biden, said: “There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it.”
When launching his campaign for the general election in Clacton last month, Mr Farage had a McDonald’s milkshake thrown over him. In a second incident a week later, objects were hurled at him while on the top of his party’s battle bus.
Writing in The Telegraph, Mr Farage said that as political discourse becomes more febrile, it becomes more violent.
“It shouldn’t be normal to throw cement, rocks or drinks at me. And yet, for many on the left, the language of violence has become their last resort. And we’re now seeing the consequences,” he wrote.
“Which is why, next week, I will be travelling to Milwaukee to the Republican Convention. I do so to support my friend, Donald Trump, as we head into the later stages of an era-defining election.”
Mr Farage has himself previously faced criticism for inflammatory comments.
In 2017, he said he would “don khaki, pick up a rifle and head for the front lines” if Theresa May failed to deliver Brexit in the fashion he wanted.
A spokesperson for Mr Farage said at the time that taking his words “out of context” would be “unfair” and insisted he was “opposed to any type of violence”.
He said in May 2016: “I think it’s legitimate to say that if people feel they have lost control completely, and we have lost control of our borders completely as members of the EU, and if people feel that voting doesn’t change anything then violence is the next step.”
The Reform UK leader spoke at rallies during Mr Trump’s 2016 campaign, and said he will be standing “shoulder to shoulder” with him this year “to stand up for democracy”.
The Brexit campaigner has interviewed the former president on multiple occasions, most recently at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in March.
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