A cabinet minister has defended the technology secretary after he claimed Nigel Farage was “on the side” of predators such as Jimmy Savile because of his opposition to online safety laws.
Peter Kyle is under fire for his claim that Mr Farage’s opposition to the Online Safety Act, which aims to restrict children’s access to harmful content online, meant he was “on the side” of “extreme pornographers”.
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The Reform UK leader immediately hit back at Mr Kyle, branding his comments “disgusting” and “so below the belt”, while also demanding an apology.
But speaking to Wilfred Frost on Sky News Breakfast, Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, said the Online Safety Act – which puts a duty on technology companies to protect children from harmful content – was “absolutely essential for protecting children and young people from sexual predators and from seeing totally inappropriate content online”.
Challenged on whether she agreed with Mr Kyle’s statement that Mr Farage was “on the side” of online predators like Savile, Ms Alexander replied: “Well, Nigel Farage is in effect saying that he is on their side because he’s saying he’s wanting to repeal the Online Safety Act.”
“In effect, what Nigel Farage is saying is that he’s totally happy for that to be a free for all on the internet,” she continued.
“That’s not the position of the Labour government. It’s not my position. It’s not the position of Keir Starmer or Peter Kyle. And that is the point that the technology secretary was rightly making yesterday.”
The Online Safety Act, which was passed in 2023, requires online platforms such as social media sites and search engines to take steps to prevent children accessing harmful content such as pornography or material that encourages suicide.
The rules of the act, which came into effect on 25 July, include introducing age verification for websites and ensuring algorithms do not work to harm children by exposing them to such content when they are online.
Failure to comply with the new rules could incur fines of up to £18m or 10% of a firm’s global turnover, whichever is greater.
At a news conference on Monday, Mr Farage and former Reform chair Zia Yusuf vowed to scrap the “dystopian” act, arguing it did “absolutely nothing to protect children” but worked to “suppress freedom of speech” and “force social media companies to censor anti-government speech”.
Describing the legislation as “the greatest assault on freedom of speech in our lifetimes”, Mr Yusuf vowed to repeal the act “as one of the first things a Reform government does”.
He also argued that children are circumventing age checks on adult websites using VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) to make it appear as if they are located outside the UK.
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Mr Kyle caused controversy when he gave an interview to Sky News where he accused Mr Farage of wanting to “turn the clock right back” on internet safety with his opposition to the legislation.
“I see that Nigel Farage is already saying that he’s going to overturn these laws,” he said.
“So you know, 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.”
The government has since doubled down on Mr Kyle’s comments, with the Labour Party posting on X on Tuesday: “Nigel Farage wants to scrap vital protections for young people online. Reform offers anger but no answers.”
At a news conference the same day, Mr Farage urged the public to sign a petition which calls for the Online Safety Act to be repealed, saying he was “deeply worried about the implications for free speech”.
