Here is an explainer from Dan Milmo and Robert Booth about the Online Safety Act, and the age checks it imposes that came into force at the end of last week. This is the legislation that has triggered today’s row between Labour and Reform UK. (See 8.30am.)
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Farage demands apology from Peter Kyle for his ‘disgusting’ comment about Reform UK siding with Jimmy Savile types
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has described Peter Kyle claim that he has in effect sided with the likes of Jimmy Savile as “disgusting” and he’s demanded an apology. He posted this on social media.
Peter Kyle’s comments on @SkyNews are disgusting. He should do the right thing and apologise.
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Labour says Farage’s plan to repeal Online Safety Act suggests he is siding with pornographers and paedophiles
Good morning. Yesterday Reform UK said that it would repeal the Online Safety Act, key parts of which have only just come into force. The party described it as “the greatest assault on freedom of speech in our lifetimes” and claimed that it won’t protect children because some people are using VPN services to bypass age cerification requirements. It was quite a bold policy announcement, because polls suggest voters strongly back measures to limit the spread of harmful content online, but it has gone down well with hardcore libertarians.
Peter Kyle, the science secretary, has been giving interviews this morning, and he has not held back. In an interview with Sky News, he claimed this meant that Nigel Farage was now in effect siding with pornographers and paedophiles like Jimmy Savile. He explained:
Children under 18 should not be viewing involuntarily dangerous, hateful, violent, misogynistic and pornographic material. People have to understand the wild west [lasted on the internet] for too long. That ended on my watch. It ended on the watch of this government. [The implementation of the Online Safety Act is] a big step forward. Believe me, anyone that thinks it’s a step back needs to come and answer now.
I see that Nigel Farage is already saying that he’s going to overturn these laws. So we have people out there who are extreme pornographers, peddling hate, peddling violence. Nigel Farage is on their side.
Make no mistake about it. If people like Jimmy Savile were alive today, he’d be perpetrating his crimes online. And Nigel Farage is saying that he’s on their side, not the side of children.
When Wilfred Frost, the presenter, challenged Kyle, and asked if it was he was seriously saying that Farage was aligned with the likes of Jimmy Savile, Kyle doubled down. He replied:
When it comes to online activity, we have seen unfettered access of adults to children via social media. When we put in the age verification, it stops strange adults getting in touch with children …
Nigel Farage is on the side of turning the clock back to the time when strange adults, strangers, can get in touch via messenging apps with children. We have now asked [social media companies] to age verify the age at which people can have access to online content so we can protect children from unwanted, dangerous content, and also those messaging services.
Nigel Farage wants to turn the clock right back. People are perpetrating more crime online, [presenting] more danger to children online, and Nigel Farage has said he wants to overturn every single one of the laws that keeps children safe in our country.
Frost described that as “an interesting extrapolation”.
We will hear more on this later. But the main news today will come from the cabinet meeting that Keir Starmer is chairing about Gaza. I will post more on that soon too.
And the Donald Trump news machine is still on UK soil until this afternoon, so we will hear from him as well.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Donald Trump opens his new golf course in Aberdeenshire. He also has a meeting with John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, who will be there for the opening, along with Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader. Swinney and Sarwar are expected to give interviews. Trump is due to leave Scotland for the US at about 4pm.
2pm: Keir Starmer chairs a rare recess cabinet meeting to discuss the starvation crisis in Gaza, and his proposals for a peace plan.
Also, Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is visiting a tin mine in Cornwall. And David Lammy, the foreign secretary, is addressing a UN conference on a two-state solution for the Middle East in New York (late afternoon UK time).
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Updated at 08.58 BST