A man in his 20s has been arrested on suspicion of sending threatening communications to a member of Parliament, in a case linked to an alleged threat against the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage. The arrest was first flagged when the party said publicly that a man had been detained after a threat was made against Farage on social media, and it was later confirmed in a formal statement by the police force handling the investigation.
The Metropolitan Police set out the sequence of events in its response. According to the force, the man was arrested on Tuesday, 14 July, on suspicion of sending threatening communications to an MP, in a matter that relates to a social media post published earlier this year. That post, officers said, had been reported to police on Friday, 8 May, opening the inquiry that eventually led to the arrest.
Investigators then worked to identify who was behind the message. According to the force, after receiving the report detectives submitted an application to a social media platform to gain access to the user's contact information, a step that allowed them to trace the account back to a real person once the relevant details were handed over to the investigating team.
The arrest itself was carried out at a home in the capital. According to the force, once the information was returned to detectives, the man was arrested with support from local officers at a residential address in South London. He was then held in police custody overnight before being released, and, according to the force, he has since been bailed pending further inquiries as the investigation continues.
The Reform UK leader used the case to press a wider complaint about how such threats are handled. According to his party, Farage said this was the first time the police had ever proactively acted on a social media post, and he urged officers to look at what he described as another 300 or 400 similar posts made this year alone, arguing that the problem had been building for a long time.
He also claimed the threats had gone well beyond words. According to his party, Farage said the material had included not just messages but videos of people firing guns, and that in the past multiple reports made to the police had repeatedly been met with the response that the posts did not meet the threshold for action, something he called extraordinary.
The arrest lands at a tense moment for politicians in the country. It comes days after the killing of Anne Widdecombe, a former MP who had joined Reform UK and served as a spokesperson for the party, a death that counter-terrorism officers have taken over and are treating as a targeted attack, sharpening concern about the safety of public figures and the seriousness with which online threats are pursued.