LONDON: Nigel Farage, the new leader of Britain’s right-wing Reform Party and a thorn in the side of the governing Conservatives, was doused with a soft drink on Tuesday in his first full day of campaigning for a seat in parliament in the Jul 4 election.
On Monday, Farage produced the biggest shock of the campaign by announcing he would head Reform and run in the election, a major blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, whose Conservative Party trails Labour badly in surveys.
Farage is best known for helping to lead a successful campaign in 2016 for Britain to leave the European Union, and his popularity has put pressure on a succession of Conservative leaders to be tougher on immigration.
Shortly after he launched his campaign in the seat of Clacton-on-Sea, southeast England, a woman threw a large cup of soft drink over him as he left a pub, footage posted on social media showed.
He appeared unharmed as he was led away by security and later posed smiling in a video posted on X holding a McDonald’s cup and joking: “My milkshake brings all the people to the rally.”
Richard Tice, chairman of Reform, called the attacker a “juvenile moron”, saying his party would not be intimidated and the incident would help it win hundreds of thousands more votes.
