Reform UK has promised to repeal the Online Safety Act, arguing that measures intended to push social media companies to limit false and potentially harmful content would instead make the UK “a borderline dystopian state”.
At a press conference in Westminster billed as discussing crime, Nigel Farage and his close aide Zia Yusuf instead spent much of the time discussing the act, which came into force last week, and particularly its approach towards social media.
Farage also leaned more heavily than normal into language on migration. Echoing the far right, he said the arrival of people from certain countries was responsible for an increase in the number of rapes and sexual assaults in the UK.
Farage and Yusuf said a Reform government would immediately repeal the Online Safety Act and seek other ways to replicate its efforts in protecting children from harmful content, for example about suicide. They said they did not yet know how this would be done.
“So much of the act is massive overreach and plunges this country into a borderline dystopian state,” said Yusuf, who was the party chair and now leads a team looking for efficiencies in councils the party runs.
Powers given to the media regulator, Ofcom, to levy fines for harmful content would “force social media companies to censor anti-government speech”, Yusuf claimed, saying even X, which is run by Elon Musk, would be forced to curb freedom of speech.
“Any student of history will know that the way countries slip into this sort of authoritarian regime is through legislation that cloaks tyranny inside the warm fuzz of safety and security and hopes nobody reads the small print,” Yusuf said.
Quizzed about the parts of the act intended to shield children from harmful content, such as age verification, Yusuf said it was pointless because they could simply use VPN proxy servers to log in as if they were outside the UK.
Asked how Reform would protect children, Farage conceded he did not know, but said his party had expertise not available to the current government.
“Can I stand here and say that we have a perfect answer for you right now? No,” he said. “Can I say that as a party, we have more access to some of the best tech brains, not just in the country, but in the world? That I can say to you.”
Asked about the act before a meeting in Scotland with Donald Trump, Keir Starmer said it was “not censoring anyone” and was simply intended to protect children from harmful content, particularly about suicide.
Starmer said the UK had had free speech “for a very long time”, adding: “We’re very, very proud of it, we will protect it for ever.”
The press conference was ostensibly held to present Colin Sutton, a retired detective, as Reform’s consultant on crime and policing, but Farage talked at length about migration and sought to link it to crime.
He said there was “an alarming parallel between the extraordinary increase in the number of reported rapes and the wholly irresponsible immigration and asylum policies pursued by first Labour and then by Conservative governments”.
It was time to discuss “the fact we want the right types of people from different countries coming into Britain, not the wrong types of people”, he said.
He highlighted arrivals from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Eritrea as being “countries in which women aren’t even second-class citizens”. He said: “We will be talking over the next couple of weeks about the direct link between people like that from those backgrounds and the rise in sexual violence against women and girls in this country.”
Farage gave no evidence to support the claims.
Responding to the pledge to repeal the Online Safety Act, the Molly Rose Foundation, which campaigns on suicide prevention and online risks, pointed to polling suggesting it was popular with voters.
“Scrapping the Online Safety Act would be a retrograde move that would not only put children at greater risk but is out of step with the mood of the public,” said Andy Burrows, the foundation’s chief executive.
