Jess Phillips accuses Nigel Farage of ‘grifting’ in row over Southport stabbings response

**From The Telegraph’s Political Correspondent, Dominic Penna:**

Jess Phillips has accused Nigel Farage of “grifting” in a row over his response to the Southport killings.

The Reform leader claimed in a social media video that important questions about the deadly knife attack on children at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club remained unanswered.

Mr Farage speculated whether the “truth is being withheld” about the killing of three girls aged six, seven and nine, following social media rumours.

The suspect was falsely identified as an asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK in a small boat, while unsubstantiated claims also circulated that he was on an MI6 watch-list.

Ms Phillips, a minister at the Home Office, accused Mr Farage of acting in bad faith after he missed a statement by Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, in the Commons on Tuesday.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Ms Phillips said: “Nigel Farage could yesterday have had the questions, he claims are unanswered, answered, if he had bothered to turn up to Parliament and ask them during the statement on the incidents in Southport.

“He didn’t turn up, he grifted instead.”

It came as Brendan Cox, the widower of Jo Cox, who was murdered in 2016, compared Mr Farage to “Tommy Robinson in a suit”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It’s right out of the Trump playbook, and in my view it makes Nigel Farage no better than Tommy Robinson in a suit.

“It is beyond the pale to use a moment like this to spread your narrative and to spread your hatred, and we saw the results on Southport’s streets last night.”

**Article Link:** [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/31/jess-phillips-accuses-nigel-farage-gifting-southport/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/31/jess-phillips-accuses-nigel-farage-gifting-southport/)

Nigel hasn’t got time to be in parliament or in Clacton, he’s far too busy on GB news , in the USA sucking on Trumps teet and getting a tan .

Can’t go for Brexit anymore, so now it’s race baiting.

……because, cunt.

Not a racist…….noooo, just a concerned millionaire man of the people,who tells it like his racist bigoted mouthbreathing, shouty followers luv.

He really is Tommy Robinson in a saville row suit.

If Nigel Garage made comments that incited a riot, then he should be held to account over it 

By CPS

I really hate this modern trend that’s appeared in the last few years of referring to things as grifting. Did Phillips ‘grift’ when she was doing a photoshoot for her book?

Farage was in parliament yesterday. I saw him on the live stream. The question time that took place yesterday. It lasted half an hour with a grand total of seven questions (including one by Lee Anderson). And let’s face it, any answer the minister would have given would have been a scripted response about details not being able to be released at present