Nigel Farage’s hollow, dangerous concern for women

Reform’s radical plans for mass deportations won’t make anyone safer.

Here’s a question for female readers: would you rather be stuck in a room with an asylum seeker or a member of Reform UK? It may sound flippant, but since Nigel Farage is so fond of statistics, let’s test his argument against the facts. Who, in reality, poses the greater threat to women’s safety: desperate people seeking refuge, or the men who lead and cheer on Reform?

This week, Farage unveiled “Operation Restore Justice”, the grim culmination of months of anti-migrant rhetoric. His big idea to tackle “illegal migration” (people exercising their legal right to claim asylum) doesn’t involve safe routes or striking agreements with European neighbours. No, it involves mass deportations of vulnerable people to countries that may wish them harm. The justification is that asylum seekers are a danger to public services, to communities, and – most prominently – to women and girls.

To reinforce the message, Farage’s allies lean on distorted statistics. In recent weeks, local protests erupted after it emerged that a man accused of assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Epping was an asylum seeker. Farage has eagerly linked rising rape reports to the “irresponsible immigration policies” of previous governments, while his acolytes claim that foreign nationals account for 23 per cent of sexual offences in the UK, a figure experts have challenged for its selective use and lack of context.

It’s an old trick from the far-right playbook: the fantasy that foreign men pose an existential danger to white women, who must be “protected” by white men. The subtext is clear: women are property in need of guarding. And then there is the darker truth: violence is tolerable, so long as it comes from our own.

Don’t believe me? Ask yourself where Farage’s fury goes when the perpetrators are white British men. I don’t recall him being an apologist for “civil disobedience on a vast scale” when Kyle Clifford raped and murdered Louise Hunt and killed her sister and mother with a crossbow, nor when the Met officer Wayne Couzens abducted and murdered Sarah Everard. What I do recall is Farage hailing Andrew Tate, the misogynist influencer who is facing rape and human trafficking charges in Britain (which Tate denies) and an investigation in Romania, as an “important voice” for young boys. He also defended his own MP, James McMurdock, who in 2006 was convicted of assaulting his former girlfriend, downplaying the offence, insisting the conviction was “irrelevant” and that his colleague was a “good example to young tearaways”. By my count, that is 20 per cent of Reform’s originally elected MPs with violent offences against women.

Are his supporters much better? Last year’s riots, sparked by the horrific killing of young girls at a dance class in Southport, quickly escalated into race-fuelled violence. Any claim that this was the natural response of ordinary people concerned about gendered violence collapses under scrutiny. Of the 899 arrested, 41 per cent had previously been reported to police for domestic abuse. In certain areas, the figure reached 68 per cent. Not only does this expose the hypocrisy behind that justification for the riots, it also reminds us that the greatest threat to women is not strangers arriving on dinghies, but the men close at home. As Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) expert Joan Smith has long argued, domestic abuse is too often a precursor to wider public violence.

Beyond the spectacle, there is nothing in Farage’s new plans that would make women safer. In fact, it puts us at further risk. Chillingly, his scheme could see the UK send women and girls back into the hands of the Taliban, while proposals to repeal the Human Rights Act and withdraw from the ECHR should alarm us all. They claim a new Bill of Rights could safeguard our liberties. But how much faith should women have in a party led by a man who has suggested reducing abortion time limits , defended abusers in his own ranks and praised a rapacious misogynist? Do you really trust him to enshrine your hard-won reproductive rights, your workplace equality, or shield you from domestic violence?

The real facts are stark, if only Farage cared to acknowledge them. The overwhelming majority of sexual offences in this country are committed by British men already living here. Women and girls are far more likely to be harmed by someone they know than by a stranger. One in two rapes against women is carried out by a current or former partner, and one in four women will experience domestic violence.

Scapegoating migrants as the source of sexual violence is more than a distraction. It shifts attention away from the state’s continual failure to protect victims and allows violence to flourish in the vacuum. While Farage points at small boats, courts are collapsing, leaving many women to abandon prosecutions. Rape convictions are at an all-time low, misogyny in schools is rising, and domestic violence shelters are closing. On all of this, Farage offers only silence.

Farage’s concern for women is more than a hollow performance. It’s dangerous. It points us all in the wrong direction, letting real misogyny take root at home. So, back to my opening question: the asylum seeker, or the men who lead and cheer on Reform UK? I know who I’d choose.