LONDON: A 25-year-old British woman has been charged with assault after Brexit figurehead Nigel Farage was doused with a milkshake during his campaign launch, police said Wednesday.
Essex Police said Victoria Thomas Bowen was charged with assault by beating and criminal damage in connection with the incident in Clacton-on-Sea on Tuesday.
She will appear at Colchester Magistrates Court on July 2, a statement said.
Farage, the newly appointed leader of the anti-immigration Reform UK party, was covered in what appeared to be banana milkshake from a McDonald’s cup after emerging from a pub thronged by crowds.
He had earlier been given a rousing welcome in the Brexit-supporting stronghold.
It was not this first time Farage has been targeted in a milkshake attack.
A man doused him when he was leader of Reform’s forerunner, the Brexit party, during the 2019 European election campaign.
The perpetrator, Paul Crowther, admitted to assault and criminal damage to a lapel mic on Farage’s suit, and was ordered to carry out 150 hours of community service and pay damages.
The Clacton constituency, currently held by the Conservatives, was the first to elect a lawmaker for Farage’s former political vehicle, the UK Independence Party (UKIP), in 2014.
Farage, a former European Parliament member, has run for and failed seven times to become a British MP. His candidacy threatens to split the right-wing vote.
Woman charged with assault after UK politician Farage ‘milkshaked’
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Woman charged with assault after UK politician Farage ‘milkshaked’
- Farage, the newly appointed leader of the anti-immigration Reform UK party, was covered in what appeared to be banana milkshake
Arts festival’s decision to exclude Palestinian author spurs boycott
- A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival
SYDENY: A top Australian arts festival has seen the withdrawal of dozens of writers in a backlash against its decision to bar an Australian Palestinian author after the Bondi Beach mass shooting, as moves to curb antisemitism spur free speech concerns.
The shooting which killed 15 people at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Dec. 14 sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism. Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by Daesh.
The Adelaide Festival board said last Thursday it would disinvite Randa Abdel-Fattah from February’s Writers Week in the state of South Australia because “it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi.”
FASTFACTS
• Abdel-Fattah responded, saying it was ‘a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.’
• Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival.
Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
Among the boycotting authors, Kathy Lette wrote on social media the decision to bar Abdel-Fattah “sends a divisive and plainly discriminatory message that platforming Australian Palestinians is ‘culturally insensitive.'”
The Adelaide Festival said in a statement on Monday that three board members and the chairperson had resigned. The festival’s executive director, Julian Hobba, said the arts body was “navigating a complex moment.”
a complex and unprecedented moment” after the “significant community response” to the board decision.
In the days after the Bondi Beach attack, Jewish community groups and the Israeli government criticized Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for failing to act on a rise in antisemitic attacks and criticized protest marches against Israel’s war in Gaza held since 2023.
Albanese said last week a Royal Commission will consider the events of the shooting as well as antisemitism and social cohesion in Australia. Albanese said on Monday he would recall parliament next week to pass tougher hate speech laws.
On Monday, New South Wales state premier Chris Minns announced new rules that would allow local councils to cut off power and water to illegally operating prayer halls.
Minns said the new rules were prompted by the difficulty in closing a prayer hall in Sydney linked to a cleric found by a court to have made statements intimidating Jewish Australians.
The mayor of the western Sydney suburb of Fairfield said the rules were ill-considered and councils should not be responsible for determining hate speech.
“Freedom of speech is something that should always be allowed, as long as it is done in a peaceful way,” Mayor Frank Carbone told Reuters.
