LONDON (AP) — A man who made a threat on social media to shoot Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage was arrested, police said on Wednesday, as concerns grow over the security of British politicians following the killing last week of former government minister Ann Widdecombe.
The man was held on Tuesday on suspicion of sending threatening communications to a member of Parliament, the Metropolitan Police said. He was held overnight and later released on bail.
“I am going to shoot you in the head if you win,” the man allegedly told Farage in a post on X in May, according to the Telegraph newspaper.
The July 8 killing of Widdecombe at her rural home in southwest England shocked the political establishment and the public. The 78-year-old, who was Reform’s immigration and justice spokesperson, was long known for her blunt-spoken socially conservative views opposing abortion and the expansion of LGBTQ+ rights.
Farage said her death showed that “things have become even more dangerous” for people in public life and his party has called for better protection. Other Reform politicians have suggested their party members are at greater risk than other politicians.
Outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in a tribute to Widdecombe in the House of Commons, said it was “chilling” that three sitting or former MPs had been murdered during his 11 years in Parliament.
“We must do more to defend our democracy” Starmer said.
Security has been tightened in the past decade after Labour lawmaker Jo Cox was fatally shot and stabbed in 2016 by a far-right extremist, and Conservative David Amess was stabbed to death in 2021 by an attacker inspired by the Islamic State group.
The alleged threat to Farage came during local and regional elections in May that saw his relatively new anti-immigration party win big and raise its hopes he could become prime minister after the next election, due in 2029. The poll results were so poor for the ruling Labour Party that its members forced Starmer to resign.
Police said the threat was reported May 8, but the arrest only came after they received information they requested from the social media company about the user’s identity.
Farage has recently been embroiled in a scandal over a 5 million pound ($6.7 million) donation he received from an overseas cryptocurrency billionaire that he said helped pay for his private security.
The Reform leader resigned his seat in Parliament this month but is seeking reelection to show he still has voters’ support. Opponents have criticized the move as a ploy to dodge a parliamentary probe.
The investigation into Widdecombe's death is being handled by counterterror police. A 28-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder and terror crimes. He remains in custody but was not named because he has not been charged.
Devon and Cornwall Police have been criticized for originally saying the killing was not believed to be a terror-related crime and there was nothing to suggest it was politically motivated.
Widdecombe served in Parliament from 1987 to 2010, and was prisons minister in Prime Minister John Major’s 1990s Conservative government.
She later found fame as a contestant on the reality television shows “Strictly Come Dancing” and “Celebrity Big Brother.”
She joined the Brexit Party, briefly serving as a member of the European Parliament before Britain left the European Union in 2020. She had recently joined Reform.
Associated Press writer Jill Lawless contributed to this report.
FILE -Ann Widdecombe, Brexit Party member, is interviewed after Nigel Farage, Leader of Britain's Brexit Party, spoke on stage at the launch of their policies for the General Election campaign, in London, Nov. 22, 2019. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
Britain's Reform UK leader Nigel Farage leaves Milbank Tower after he said he'll quit his Parliament seat and seek reelection in London, Tuesday, July 7, 2026.(AP Photo/Thomas Krych)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump wants Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to keep pulling over vehicles, signaling his opposition Wednesday to plans announced just a day earlier to suspend most traffic stops following another string of fatal shootings.
It's not clear whether ICE will quickly reverse course and resume most stops, which have been a key tool in Trump's immigration crackdown.
Ending those stops, Trump wrote, would be “playing right into the criminal’s hands.”
“We CANNOT give up one of ICE’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!” Trump wrote Wednesday on his social media site.
Hours after Trump made his views known, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin issued his own statement saying people illegally in the country would be “arrested and deported wherever they are.” But Mullin didn't say whether ICE officers will be allowed to carry out traffic stops.
ICE's enforcement tactics are coming under renewed criticism after three people died during encounters with federal officers within roughly a week. In Florida, a 28-year-old man was killed Tuesday after he was hit by a tractor trailer while running from immigration and other federal officers, authorities said.
Before that, two motorists were shot and killed by ICE officers — one in Texas last week and another in Maine on Monday.
After the Maine killing, Trump administration officials told ICE officers to suspend most vehicle stops, people familiar with the decision said Tuesday.
Since the immigration crackdown began, federal officers confronting drivers have opened fire several times, saying the drivers’ vehicles had posed a danger. Policing experts have long said that shooting into moving cars presents a danger of its own and should almost always be avoided.
There have been at least 10 deaths involving encounters with immigration agents since Trump launched his deportation campaign. At least four of them involved people in vehicles, a trend so troubling that U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Tuesday that she had urged Department of Homeland Security leaders “to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops.”
ICE has been under pressure to beef up arrest and deportation numbers. It says people being sought are increasingly staying in their homes, and it often blames immigration advocates who advise immigrants to stay in homes unless ICE produces a warrant signed by an independent judge.
ICE officers say that means they’re forced to find other ways to make arrests.
Hundreds of people in Maine protested Tuesday over the fatal shooting of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 25-year-old Colombian national. Advocacy groups said he was authorized to work in the United States.
Durán Guerrero had illegally entered the U.S. on Sept. 1, 2023, through the southern border, DHS said Wednesday.
Sen. Angus King, I-Me., said the Homeland Security secretary told him on Monday that ICE officers were in Biddeford to serve an arrest warrant but that it wasn't for the person who was shot.
DHS said agents were surveilling an address for a person with a final order of removal from the country.
When ICE tried to stop a vehicle driven by someone who came from that address, the “vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon,” the department said.
It its statement Wednesday, DHS said Guerrero was released into the U.S. after crossing the border.
The department didn't answer questions about the agent who shot him.
Photos showed bullet holes in Durán Guerrero’s car windshield, but the officers involved in the shooting didn’t have body cameras, leaving many questions. Among them are how close the officer was to the vehicle when shooting, whether officers told Durán Guerrero to stop and why ICE believes he had put the public in danger.
In a scathing post on X, outgoing Colombian President Gustavo Petro called the shooting a targeted killing “at the hands of the U.S. government.”
Petro, who has openly quarreled with Trump, urged Trump to provide an explanation and accused ICE officers of treating Durán Guerrero as “an inferior being without rights.”
In Wednesday’s social media post, Trump told ICE to be “judicious, fair and smart, and go back and do your very important job.”
Border czar Tom Homan told reporters Tuesday that the investigation needs to play out and that officers will be held accountable if they are found to have acted inappropriately or illegally.
Whittle reported from Biddeford, Maine. Associated Press reporters Jack Brook in New Orleans, Michael R. Sisak in New York, Elliot Spagat in Park City, Utah, and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump speaks as he meets with Iraq's Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, July 14, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
