A protestor who was dragged by the hair and bruised at Reform UK’s conference has condemned the party for ‘celebrating violence against women’.
Sally – not her real name – was part of a group of climate activists who shouted out during Nigel Farage’s speech on Friday before being ‘assaulted’ by party faithful.
Her hair was violently pulled, her shirt was ripped and she has been left with bruises over her body and a headache.
Reform politicians have since made light of the party’s treatment of the disruptors, telling them to ‘get a life’.
Sally, 25 from London, was the first activist from Climate Resistance to stand up during Farage’s address on Friday.
She was screaming at the party leader, accusing him of being ‘bankrolled by billionaires’ when she was pulled down by her hair by party members.
The campaigner told : ‘I was dragged down onto the row of seats in front of me.
‘I was hoisted up by a mixture of security guards and audience members. This is the point at which my shirt was ripped, and I got some of the bruises.
‘There were definitely still audience members reaching and yanking my hair.
‘As I was dragged out, security were holding me across my chest in a painful way.
One of the security guards stood on my hair and then they all lifted me up.’
Two days after the demo, Sally was still feeling unwell after her aggressive exit from the arena.
She explained: ‘I was aggressively assaulted. I am not doing great. I still have hair falling out. I have had a headache for about three days now. I have neck and back pain.’
Videos from the conference also show other climate activists appearing to be attacked while they objected to Farage’s speech.
One woman – dressed in red – can be seen having her hair pulled while another grabbed her head and his it with a walking stick.
Another clip appears to show an audience member using a walking stick during the confrontation.
Sally, who was part of protests during Reform’s conference last year, said: ‘Everyone was quite violently hurt.
‘We knew people were going to grab us and pull us down, but we were not expecting them to be violent. I was not expecting it to be this extreme.
‘It was facilitated by Farage’s patronising nature on stage. It was disgusting.’
The response of party members to the protests has since been backed by senior Reform figures.
The party’s Shadow Chancellor told Sky News: ‘Boohoo… You take your chances if you go to a party conference and try and mess it up.
‘We are now in a country where a far-left protester goes into a party conference, tries to wreck the leader’s speech, and cries foul if a pensioner knocks her over the head with a zimmer frame. Come on, get a life.’
Lee Anderson, Chairman of Reform UK, got on stage and called for a ‘whip round’ to raise money for a new walking stick for the man who used his cane to hit protestors.
Anderson did add that he ‘does not condone’ that behaviour, while making other jokes about the demonstrators.
Sally said it was ‘incredibly alarming’ that Reform figures ‘seem to find the violence against us as nothing but a joke and a cheap way of scoring points.’
She added: ‘I am shocked they are so happy to continue to incite this behaviour. It encouraged their members to continue and do it again.
‘It was the women who got the worst and most violent treatment. The men were tussled up but they were not grabbed and did not come out of it with bruises.’
The altercation comes after Reform used the party conference to launch Women for Reform, a group designed to show the party is creating policies which help women.
However, Sally claimed her treatment showed that ‘no woman is safe in that room.’
She also said the response of Reform chiefs to the protests was a ‘distraction tactic’ after a documentary on the party’s donations aired on Thursday.
A Channel 4 News investigation recorded senior party officials talking about an apparent scheme to funnel foreign money to Reform UK.
Farage and his long-time aide, Dan Jukes, were present during a conversation in which it is suggested a US donor, who was an actor, gives £500,000 to Reform through his UK-based son.
Under electoral law, donors to UK political parties must be a UK registered voter, or a company registered in the UK, so they cannot give money from abroad through a British resident.
In an interview with the BBC, Farage denied wrongdoing and said he ‘wasn’t even listening’ during the lunch with the undercover reporters.
Dan Jukes has also denied wrongdoing.
Reform said it had ‘been the target of a hoax perpetuated by foreign-funded, climate change activists posing as would-be party donors’.
They also insisted the party ‘has a robust vetting process for prospective donors approved by the Electoral Commission.’
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