The Nigel Farage-founded Reform UK party has published footage purporting to show death threats against its candidate in the Rochdale by-election as British politics continues to be consumed by debate over the threat of Islamic extremism.
On Monday evening, Reform UK revealed apparent death threats against Simon Danczuk, a former Labour MP who is now standing for Reform UK in Thursday’s by-election (special election) to select the next member of parliament for the multicultural northern English town of Rochdale.
In one video, a man holding a Reform UK election leaflet is heard calling Danczuk a “bald, white, devil, bastard”. Responding to the leaflet, which urged voters to “vote for Rochdale, not Gaza,” the man goes on to call the candidate a “son of a bitch”. The man is then heard making an apparent death threat, saying that he is “gonna put one on his head” in reference to Danczuk.
Another post appeared to show a message received by the Reform UK Facebook page in which someone said to Danczuk: “I am going to assault you when I see you and I care not of the consequences.”
Honorary president of the party, Nigel Farage said that he was “horrified” by the video, saying: “Never in my life have I seen anything like this, this is the greatest threat to our democracy ever.”
Writing to Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Stephen Watson, Reform UK party leader Richard Tice called the threats “absolutely outrageous and unacceptable”.
Tice called on the police force to “take the threat seriously, and provide a proper level of security to allow the campaign to take place in an orderly manner,” including by providing security to Danczuk and his team.
The apparent death threats in the Rochdale race come as the politics of the Middle East have taken centre stage in British politics, with the Conservatives suspending former deputy chairman Lee Anderson over supposedly “Islamophobic” comments and the Labour Party suspending multiple parliamentary candidates, including its candidate for the Rochdale race, Azhar Ali, after he accused Israel of intentionally allowing the Hamas terror attacks on October 7th.
Immediately following the October 7th attacks — even before Israel responded militarily in Gaza — thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets of Britian, including some spouting genocidal rhetoric against the Jewish state.
The soft policing of the protests — in comparison to lockdown protests or other right-wing protests — has led to suggestions from Home Secretary Suella Braverman and others that Islamists have effectively taken over the country through intimidation.
This assertion was amplified last week when the normal order of parliament was thrown aside by House Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle, who broke with protocol to allow Labour Party amendments to a motion from the Scottish National Party calling for a ceasefire in Gaza out of concern, he said, over potential terror attacks on MPs.
The chaotic scenes inside the parliament were accompanied by hundreds of anti-Israel protesters outside the building, including some who projected the genocidal Palestinian “from the river to the sea” battle cry onto Big Ben as police stood by. The chaotic events were followed by Conservative MP Lee Anderson being suspended from the party over claiming that London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer were under the “control” of “Islamists”.
Sensing blood in the water, the Labour Party and the legacy immediately attempted to shift the conversation around antisemitism within the Labour Party and at protests on the streets of Britain to branding the Conservatives as having a problem with so-called “Islamophobia”.
Shadow Equalities Minister for the Labour Party, Anneliese Dodds led the accusations of Islamophobia and has called on the government to adopt a formal definition of Islamophobia into law. Her counterpart in government, Kemi Badenoch, warned that this would lead to the formation of a “blasphemy law via the back door” if instituted into law.
“In this country, we have a proud tradition of religious freedom AND the freedom to criticise religion,” Badenoch said on social media.
Meanwhile, Anna Firth, the Conservative MP for Southend West who replaced Sir David Amess — who was killed in broad daylight by a radical Islamist — urged her party to not bend to accusations of Islamophobia but rather openly confront the threat of radical Islam in Britain.
“We seem afraid. Afraid to be seen as racist or Islamophobic, even when we simply seek to save lives by speaking the truth,” she wrote in The Telegraph.
“I was always taught to stand up to bullies, not to give in, and never, ever to let myself be intimidated. It’s hard, though, when the threat is real and nobody wants to admit where it’s coming from. If you can’t name it, you can’t protect yourself from it.”
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