Nigel Farage is continuing to peddle a lie about clashes outside a hotel hosting migrants in Essex. He falsely claimed that police had bussed left-wing protestors to the scene. That allegation has been thoroughly debunked.

The Reform leader has not deleted a video posted on X which he claimed “proved” Essex police had provided transport, even though he himself has conceded on his GB News show they were taking the protestors away from the hotel.

In an inflammatory video posted to the platform, Farage said that the scenes “showed Stand Up To Racism, as they’re called, with Antifa, a violent, thuggish group, arriving at the train station and literally, by Essex Police, being bussed to the Bell Hotel. These were the people who caused the disturbances, these were the people that caused the riots.

“Essex Police caused the disturbances. What on earth were Essex Police thinking?”

There was no evidence of any Antifa activity at the hotel. The protests were in fact organised by the Homeland party, an offshoot of Patriotic Alternative, described by Hope Not Hate as the “biggest fascist neo-Nazi party in the UK”, but according to Farage simply a group of “bad eggs”. The claim about the police was an absolute lie.

Essex Police say it is “categorically wrong”, adding that “some people who were clearly at risk of being hurt were also escorted by vehicle away from the area for their safety” and “to reiterate, we categorically did not drive any counter-protesters to the site on any occasion”.

On his £98,000-a-month GB News show, Farage told viewers that he had received a call from an Essex Police officer. “If I was slightly out on accuracy,” said Farage, “I apologise, but I think the gist of what I was saying was right”.

It wasn’t, of course, and he has left the original video on X, where it has since garnered more than 9,000 reposts and 36,000 likes and continues to contribute to the unrest in Essex. Once upon a time, of course, the platform would have removed it and possibly even suspended the poster’s account – but that was under rather different ownership.