Shabana Mahmood offered Nigel Farage a personal meeting with Ravec on Monday after Ann Widdecombe’s death, and Farage thanked her on X. Zia Yusuf is part of the wider security debate only because the offer now puts Reform UK’s protection arrangements back under review.
Robert Jenrick said the government should have made the offer a year ago or two years ago, and said Farage had initially been given a comprehensive plan before his protection was downgraded. He said Farage was later offered a state-funded security package that included a bodyguard, a secure car and a trained driver, but turned it down.
Robert Jenrick on Tuesday
Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday, Jenrick said: “The government chose not to give Nigel the security that he needed. They now have, as a result of Ann Widdecombe’s appalling murder, offered him a meeting.” He also said: “The home secretary could have offered that meeting a year ago, two years ago. She chose not to. That, I’m afraid, is playing politics with the safety of politicians, and I suspect that’s because they don’t like the views the Reform politicians take forward. Because we are not mainstream politicians. We are politicians who are fighting the establishment every single day. We’re not backing down.”
He added on Tuesday: “I find it astonishing that just a short period after [Farage] was elected to parliament, the authorities, the government, chose to massively downgrade his security.” Jenrick also said: “I can’t see any good explanation for that, and the events of the last week have only shone a light on that. It shouldn’t have taken the death of Ann Widdecombe for Nigel Farage to be given a meeting with the relevant Home Office committee.”
Nigel Farage and Ravec
Farage responded on X by thanking Mahmood and saying: “I will meet with the chair of Ravec and discuss the security of all Reform politicians, including those who are not MPs.” His statement extends the discussion beyond his own protection to others in Reform UK who do not sit in the Commons.
Mahmood told the Commons that Ann Widdecombe’s death raised questions about the security of former MPs and politicians from smaller parties, including those not in parliament. Ann Widdecombe was a former Tory minister and a Reform spokesperson. Her death is being investigated by counter-terrorism police.
South Yorkshire arrest
On Saturday, a 28-year-old man from Rotheram, South Yorkshire, was arrested on suspicion of her murder. That arrest keeps the security discussion tied to an active police investigation while Ravec considers how Farage’s protection and the treatment of other Reform figures should be handled.
