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CPS to review claims Nigel Farage 'incited hatred'

Former Ukip leader 'utterly rejects' the claims and tells the 42,691 people who petitioned for him to be prosecuted to 'get a life'.

Saturday 10 September 2016 18:39 BST

Nigel Farage unveiling the Breaking Poster during the referendum campaign (Rex)

The Crown Prosecution Service is to review allegations that Nigel Farage incited racial and religious hatred during the EU referendum campaign.

The move comes after 42,691 people signed an online change.org petition calling for the former Ukip leader to be prosecuted. It also follows an outpouring of so-called post-referendum racism which saw hate incidents reported to the police rise by 57 per cent in the four days following the June 23 vote.

Nigel Farage, however, told The Independent that he “rejected utterly” any suggestion that he or any campaign with which he had been involved had incited any sort of hatred. Speaking of those who had asked for him to be prosecuted, he said: “I suggest they all get a life and recognise that this referendum is over.

“The war is over.

“So let’s get on with building a happy, peaceable multi-racial society.”

The petition cited the ‘Breaking Point’ poster unveiled by Mr Farage which depicted mainly non-white refugees crossing a border in central Europe, thousands of miles from the UK.

The petition, handed in to a north London police station in July, stated: “The law states that it is incitement to racial hatred when a person ‘intends to stir up racial hatred, or makes it likely that racial hatred will be stirred up. This can include such things as making a speech, displaying a racist poster.’

“The law states that it is incitement to religious hatred when a person uses: ‘words or behaviour that is intended to stir up religious hatred.’"

Petition organiser Zack Newman, 36, who - like Mr Farage in his former career - works as a commodities broker, albeit as a comprehensively educated one rather than an alumnus of the fee-paying Dulwich College, told The Independent: “If mainstream politicians are allowed to get away with deliberately stoking up fear and hatred of minority groups to generate votes we are in trouble.

“Unless a strong signal is sent now we will only see more of this type of campaigning in the next election. This must never be allowed to happen again.”

Mr Newman revealed that after the call for a prosecution was passed to Westminster Police, officers initially rejected it, with the investigating detective saying that the Breaking Point poster “cannot sensibly be interpreted as incitement or any other offence.”

Nigel Farage's most controversial moments

Show all 12

1/12Nigel Farage's most controversial moments

Nigel Farage's most controversial moments

When he unveiled that 'breaking point' poster during the referendum

Mr Farage was accused of deploying “Nazi-style propaganda” when he unveiled a poster showing Syrian refugees travelling to Europe under the next “Breaking point”. Users on social media were quick to compare the advert to a Nazi propaganda film with similar visuals and featuring Jewish refugees. The poster was particularly controversial because it was unveiled the morning of the killing of Labour MP Jo Cox

Rex

Nigel Farage's most controversial moments

When he said he’d be concerned if his neighbours were Romanian

In May 2014 Mr Farage was accused of a “racial slur” against Romanians after he suggested he would be concerned living next to a house of them. “I was asked if a group of Romanian men moved in next to you, would you be concerned? And if you lived in London, I think you would be,” he told LBC radio during an interview. Asked whether he would also object to living next to German children, he said: “You know the difference”

Bongarts/Getty Images

Nigel Farage's most controversial moments

When he said the EU campaign was won 'without a bullet being fired'

Nigel Farage has said the next Prime Minister has to be a Leave supporter

AFP/Getty

Nigel Farage's most controversial moments

When he resigned as Ukip leader and came back days later

After failing to win the seat of South Thanet at the general election, Nigel Farage stepped down as Ukip leader – as he had promised to do during the campaign. Days later on 11 May he “un-resigned” and said he would stay after being convinced by supporters within the party. We’ll see how long his resignation lasts this time

AP/Matt Dunham

Nigel Farage's most controversial moments

When he blamed immigrants for making him late

Mr Farage turned up late to a £25-a-head ‘meet the leader’ style event in Port Talbot, Wales in December 2014. Asked why he was late, he blamed immigrants. “It took me six hours and 15 minutes to get here - it should have taken three-and-a-half to four,” he said. “That has nothing to do with professionalism, what it does have to do with is a country in which the population is going through the roof chiefly because of open-door immigration and the fact that the M4 is not as navigable as it used to be”

Getty

Nigel Farage's most controversial moments

When he wanted to ban immigrants with HIV from Britain

Mr Farage has used his platform as Ukip leader call for people with HIV to be banned from coming to Britain. Asked in an interview with Newsweek Europe in October 2014 who he thought should be allowed to come to the UK, he said: “People who do not have HIV, to be frank. That’s a good start. And people with a skill.” He also repeated similar comments in the 2015 general election leadership debates

Getty

Nigel Farage's most controversial moments

When he defended the use of a racial slur against Chinese people

Defending one of Ukip’s candidates, who used the word “ch**ky” to describe a Chinese person, Mr Farage said: “If you and your mates were going out for a Chinese, what do you say you're going for?" When he was told by the presented that he “honestly would not” use the slur, Mr Farage replied: “A lot would”

Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

Nigel Farage's most controversial moments

When he said parts of Britain were ‘like a foreign land’

The Ukip leader used his 2014 conference speech to declare parts of Britain as being “like a foreign land”. He told his audience in Torquay that parts of the country were “unrecognisable” because of the number of foreigners there. Mr Farage has also previously said he felt uncomfortable when people spoke other language on a train

Screengrab

Nigel Farage's most controversial moments

When he said the British army should be deployed to France

At the height of trouble at Britain’s Calais border Mr Farage proposed a novel solution. The Ukip leader called for the British army to be sent to France to put down a migrant rebellion. “In all civil emergencies like this we have an army, we have a bit of a Territorial Army as well and we have a very, very overburdened police force and border agency,” he said. “If in a crisis to make sure we’ve actually got the manpower to check lorries coming in, to stop people illegally coming to Britain, if in those circumstances we can use the army or other forces then why not”

AFP/Getty

Nigel Farage's most controversial moments

When he said breastfeeding women should ‘sit in the corner’

Mr Farage sparked protests from mothers after he told women to “sit on the corner” if they wanted to breastfeed their children. “I think that given that some people feel very embarrassed by it, it isn’t too difficult to breastfeed a baby in a way that's not openly ostentatious,” Mr Farage said. He added: "Or perhaps sit in the corner, or whatever it might be”

AFP/Getty Images

Nigel Farage's most controversial moments

When he said the gender pay gap exists because women are ‘worth less’

At a Q&A on the European Union in January 2014 Mr Farage said there was no discrimination against women causing the gender pay gap. Instead, he said, women were paid less because they were simply “worth far less” than many of their male counterparts. “A woman who has a client base, has a child and takes two or three years off - she is worth far less to her employer when she comes back than when she went away because that client base won't be stuck as rigidly to her portfolio,” he said

Getty

Nigel Farage's most controversial moments

When he said he actually couldn’t guarantee £350m to the NHS after Brexit

During the EU referendum campaign the Leave side pledged to spend £350 million a week on the National Health Service – claiming that this is what the UK sends to Brussels. Nigel Farage didn’t speak out against this figure and also pledged to spend EU cash on the health service and other public services himself. Then the day of the election result he suddenly changed his tone, saying he couldn’t guarantee the cash for the NHS and that to pledge to do so was “a mistake”

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Mr Newman then investigated further and presented the police with “much more inflammatory posters, videos and data linking the campaigning to actual hate crimes.”

After Mr Newman emailed the detective and Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, saying he and the others petitioners wanted to refer the lack of an investigation to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, he received a further reply from the police.

The investigating officer in Westminster has now told him: “Whilst I maintain my view [against prosecution], and have senior management support for same, my management have asked that CPS review the decision.”

A Scotland Yard spokesman explained to The Independent: “On July 20 police received information, including a petition, alleging an individual had incited racial hatred during the EU referendum campaign.

“Officers from Westminster continue to assess the information and have sought legal advice as part of this process. This work remains ongoing.”

Characterising the CPS review as an investigation to see whether there should be a police investigation, Mr Newman said: “This is a step forward. I was quite happy to get that email.

“I still think there should be a prosecution. The Government and the CPS need to take this seriously. And if the CPS aren’t able to convict him [Farage] then the law needs to be changed.

“Demonising Muslims and Eastern Europeans simply isn’t legitimate politics.”

In an outspoken rebuttal of all the claims against him, Mr Farage told The Independent: “Of course, I am blamed for everything. But religion was barely mentioned in the whole referendum campaign, so that one’s out of the window before you even start.

“I don’t recall race being mentioned once, because we were basically talking about white people from Southern and Eastern Europe.”

Mr Farage, who during the referendum campaign tended to operate independently of Vote Leave, the official Brexit grouping, added: “I would suggest the police and CPS deal with the truth. The Breaking Point poster was a factual picture, not doctored in any way, of mass movements of people within the European Union in response to Mrs [Angela] Merkel making the biggest policy error of any Western politician for 70 years.”

Repeating that he had not incited hatred, he said: “Certainly not, but we did point out, as that poster did, that the EU has failed us all.”