It seems that wherever Nigel Farage travels in the UK, there are people who want to make it very clear how much they don’t like him. After incidents in Scotland, Wales, London and Suffolk in recent months, the Reform UK leader has once again been heckled on the local election campaign trail, this time in the north-west.
During a visit to the Merseyside town of Formby, Farage was speaking to ITV News when a man shouted at him: “You’re not welcome here.”
As the Clacton MP spoke of his party’s hopes of winning seats on Sefton council in May’s elections, the man continued: “Get out of my town, go back!”
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When Farage was asked by reporter Líse McNally why he thought people have a “hostile reaction to you,” Farage replied: “Because they’re frightened of change.”
“Basically we’ve been Labour or Conservative for over a hundred years, that’s the way British politics has been, change frightens people.”
He then claimed there was a “new intolerance” from “many on the hard left of British politics who think those with different opinions shouldn’t be allowed to exist.”
Reform are expected to make big gains in local councils across the country, alongside the Greens, with Labour and the Tories predicted to potentially lose hundreds of seats.
This week, Green leader Zack Polanski framed the elections on May 7 as being “between the Green Party and Reform,” adding that it was a “straight-up battle between hope and hate.”