Police
investigate Nigel Farage after vow to 'take knife' to civil servants
Gwent force
looking into comments as MEP calls speech ‘incitement to violence’
Nadeem
Badshah
Sat 28 Sep
2019 14.20 BSTLast modified on Sat 28 Sep 2019 14.53 BST
Police are
looking into remarks made by Nigel Farage at a rally in which he told the
crowd: “Once Brexit is done, we will take the knife to the pen-pushers in
Whitehall.”
Gwent
police said they were investigating the comments made by the Brexit party
leader during the event at the Neon in Newport last weekend.
The
comments, made to an audience of about 500 people, were reported to the force
by several people on Twitter.
In
response, Gwent police said: “Thank you for your message. We have been made
aware of comments made last night in Newport and we are looking into these
allegations. Thanks.”
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The
Alliance party MEP, Naomi Long, had asked police on Twitter if they would be
investigating “this clear case of incitement to violence against staff in the
civil service”.
Farage also
described his opinion of several political figures including “that ghastly
little man called [John] Bercow” and “that perfectly vile little pipsqueak of a
prime minister in Luxembourg”.
It comes
after Boris Johnson triggered widespread criticism over his inflammatory
rhetoric in the House of Commons on Wednesday.
The prime
minister told the Labour MP Paula Sherriff, who disclosed she received death
threats every day, that her concerns about his language fuelling violence were
“humbug”. Johnson also said the best way to honour the murdered MP Jo Cox was
to “get Brexit done”.
Johnson
declined to apologise for his remarks about Cox and ducked a Commons debate on
inflammatory rhetoric. But he later acknowledged the need to moderate violent
language on all sides of the debate.
Johnson was
reported to have told Conservative MPs on Thursday that he would continue to
use his language about the Benn Act to stop a no-deal Brexit. He had labelled
the legislation the “surrender bill”, despite criticism that this depicts his
opponents in parliament as traitors guilty of a betrayal.
Johnson was
criticised by his sister, Rachel, who told Sky: “I do think it was particularly
tasteless for those grieving a mother, MP and friend to say the best way to
honour her memory is to deliver the thing she and her family campaigned
against.
“I think it
was a very tasteless way of referring to the memory of a murdered MP, murdered
by someone who said ‘Britain first’, of the far-right tendency, which you could
argue is being whipped up by this sort of language.
“My brother
is using words like surrender and capitulation as if the people standing in the
way of the blessed will of the people as defined by 17.4 million votes in 2016
should be hung, drawn, quartered, tarred and feathered. I think that is highly
reprehensible language to use.”
The former
home secretary Amber Rudd accused Johnson of inciting violence for using words
such as “surrender” and accusing MPs of “betraying” the people.
The Church
of England’s bishops released a joint statement on Friday, calling on people
both inside and outside parliament to treat each other with greater respect.
They spoke after numerous MPs complained of receiving threats and Johnson’s
senior aide, Dominic Cummings, suggested that only carrying out Brexit would
ease tensions. “In the last few days, the use of language, both in debates and
outside parliament, has been unacceptable,” the bishops wrote.
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