Nigel Farage (Image: Getty)
Nigel Farage’s car was written off when he was mobbed at a village pub, the Reform UK leader said. The politician, who announced his resignation as the MP for Clacton on Tuesday, said it was one of a number of “attacks” he has experienced over the last few years.
He said: “It was a Sunday afternoon a few years ago in the local village pub. In come the mob, about 50 of them. We decided the safest thing to do was, as quickly as possible, to get into the car and to drive away. But the mob surrounded the car. Banging on the bonnet and the windscreen, kicking the side of the doors. It was a genuinely dangerous and terrifying situation to be in.”
Mr Farage continued: “The car was written off. I didn’t even bother with an insurance claim. I did everything I could not to make it public.
“But these are the kind of things I’ve had to put up with over many, many years.”
Mr Farage said incidents have become worse over the last year, with an attack on his home “similar to the one that the Prime Minister suffered”.
Reform UK’s leader previously said his home was firebombed.
His anecdote came before he announced he will quit as an MP and fight a by-election, after coming under intense pressure over unregistered donations of cash and support.
In a video statement, Clacton MP Mr Farage said: “I have done nothing wrong. I have not broken the law in any way at all.”
He accused the media of harassment and vowed to fight a “people versus the establishment” by-election.
The Reform UK leader has faced calls for an investigation following reports that long-term ally George Cottrell had provided undeclared funding for security and staffing in the year before he was elected
Mr Cottrell reportedly recruited and paid three staff to work on Mr Farage’s social media before the general election, and has continued to allow him to use a five-storey Georgian property he rented near Buckingham Palace.
Under the Commons’ rules, new MPs are required to register any gifts worth more than £300 they received in the previous 12 months, except where the gift “could not be reasonably thought by others” to relate to their political activities.
Mr Farage is already facing a parliamentary standards investigation over a £5 million gift from Reform donor Christopher Harborne before becoming an MP.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats have called for both the Electoral Commission and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to investigate the support from Mr Cottrell.
Mr Farage said standards investigations by the parliamentary authorities are “now being used as a political tool”.
His resignation will mean Parliamentary Standards Commissioner Daniel Greenberg’s investigation into the £5 million donation is suspended – but it will be resumed if Mr Farage wins the by-election and comes back to Parliament.