Lib Dem MP Accuses Farage of Shoving Her in Commons

Liberal Democrat MP Caroline Voaden has accused Nigel Farage of shoving her aside at the state opening of parliament in May. One of her male colleagues stepped in afterwards.

She gave her account to the Guardian after Farage said on Wednesday that a "physical altercation" in parliament was why he had decided to skip John Healey's budget. He said his seat reservation had been moved and he chose to give the chamber a "wide berth" to "avoid conflict". It later emerged that Commons staff had removed his reservation because it lacked the proper date stamp.

Voaden's account

"He was trying to get out of the chamber and instead of just asking if he could go past, he said: 'Let me past'," Voaden said. "I turned round and said: 'No, you can wait your turn like everyone else.' He grabbed me by the arm or the shoulder, pushed me to one side and tried to push past me."

One colleague tried to stop him because he thought she might fall down the stairs. Voaden said she fell into a colleague or the wall. "I was really taken aback and really angry because I think you just don't behave like that in any workplace, let alone the chamber of the House of Commons," she said.

Voaden called the incident "rude" and "nasty". She complained to the serjeant at arms, who she believes wrote to Farage asking him to apologise. She also raised it with the speaker. "Nothing ever came of it," she said. On social media, answering Farage's talk of a risk of "another physical altercation", she wrote: "We both know that's not true Nigel don't we?" She added that she was "still waiting for the apology you were required to write to me".

Reform's response

A Reform UK source said the claim was "not true at all" and that Lib Dem MPs were "being aggressive towards Nigel". Reform sources also suggested a Commons video showed her account was wrong. The Lib Dems said the incident took place before the footage started.

The male Lib Dem MP who intervened is understood to be Max Wilkinson. Sources say he put a hand on Farage's shoulder, "fairly gently", and told him he could not do that to another MP.

Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper told Sky News that, as she understood it, Farage physically shoved one of the party's female MPs. She said she had not been there and the incident was several months ago, and noted that Reform UK had a problem at its conference with bundling female journalists and members out of a hall. Reform's shadow chancellor, Robert Jenrick, said he was "not interested in even responding" to Cooper and was more interested in issues than in "pathetic Westminster debates".

Source: The Guardian