Cower from milkshake mob? Not me, says Nigel
NIGEL Farage denied claims he hid on his Brexit Party bus to avoid being doused in milkshake again yesterday.
He was campaigning in Kent when two men and a woman were spotted waiting for him at his next stop in Rochester.
One of Mr Farage’s supporters said they were carrying milkshakes and he was quickly alerted. His bus driver Michael Botton said the Brexit Party leader had to quickly change his plans to avoid an attack – though later his spokesman insisted that Mr Farage had not hidden inside the bus.
‘There are a couple of guys standing over there with milkshakes, they were going to throw them over him,’ Mr Botton told website Kent Live. ‘ But the police are there, we’ve spotted them and now Nigel isn’t getting off the bus.’
The group were accosted by Brexit Party organisers who prevented them from getting too close to Mr Farage.
They continued to shout anti-Farage slogans. Police challenged them about the milkshakes – which they claimed were for their own consumption.
Mr Farage was covered in a £5.25 banana and salted caramel milkshake while campaigning in Newcastle on Monday.
Paul Crowther, 32, has been charged with common assault and criminal damage after the incident, Northumbria Police said.
But Mr Farage denied reports he was left cowering in Rochester for fear of getting his suit dirty. Instead, he claimed the stop went exactly as intended. A spokesman for Mr Farage said: ‘ Nigel did media interviews on top of the campaign open-top bus and then got off to mix with supporters afterwards, taking photographs and signing boards.’ It was reported locally Mr Farage was stuck on his bus and refused to come off and greet his own fans. When he finally did step on to the street he stayed close to his bus while speaking to a handful of supporters. ‘Suggestions that he hid on board the bus are simply not true,’ said the spokesman. Earlier in the day he had visited Dartford and Gravesend, where he left the bus and joined a throng of around 30 fans. He told followers he was relaxed about Monday’s attack, and that he was ‘less worried about the milkshake saga’. At a Brexit Party rally in West London on Monday, party chairman Richard Tice said the milkshake incident in Newcastle was indicative of ‘a grave attack on Nigel and his family’.