{"id":817895,"date":"2026-10-29T19:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T19:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/817895\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T19:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T19:56:09","slug":"female-lib-dem-mp-accuses-nigel-farage-of-shoving-her-in-parliament-nigel-farage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/817895\/","title":{"rendered":"Female Lib Dem MP accuses Nigel Farage of shoving her in parliament | Nigel Farage"},"content":{"rendered":"

A female Liberal Democrat MP has accused Nigel Farage<\/a> of shoving her aside at the state opening of parliament after which one of her male colleagues intervened.<\/p>\n

Caroline Voaden gave her account of the incident in May this year after Farage revealed on Wednesday that there had been a \u201cphysical altercation\u201d in parliament which meant he had decided to avoid the budget.<\/p>\n

Voaden told the Guardian: \u201cHe was trying to get out of the chamber and instead of just asking if he could go past, he said: \u2018Let me past\u2019. I turned round and said: \u2018No, you can wait your turn like everyone else\u2019. He grabbed me by the arm or the shoulder, pushed me to one side and tried to push past me. One of my colleagues tried to stop him because he thought I was going to fall down the stairs. And then we all shuffled down.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite deliberately, he grabbed me by the arm from behind and pushed me to one side so that I fell into a colleague or the wall on the other side. I was really taken aback and really angry because I think you just don\u2019t behave like that in any workplace, let alone the chamber of the House of Commons. It was rude. It was nasty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voaden said she had complained to the serjeant at arms who she believed had written to Farage asking him to apologise. She also raised it with the speaker. \u201cNothing ever came of it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Caroline Voaden speaking in parliament. Photograph: House of Commons<\/p>\n

A Reform UK<\/a> source said it was \u201cnot true at all, it was the Lib Dem MPs being aggressive towards Nigel. This is typical Lib Dem dishonesty in an attempt to stay relevant.\u201d<\/p>\n

The male Lib Dem MP who intervened is understood to be Max Wilkinson, with sources saying he put a hand on Farage\u2019s shoulder, \u201cfairly gently\u201d grabbed him and said he could not do that to another MP.<\/p>\n

Reform sources also suggested a video from the Commons showed her account was wrong, but the Lib Dems said the incident took place before the footage started.<\/p>\n

The row erupted after the Reform leader said he had skipped John Healey\u2019s budget speech in the Commons on Wednesday because his seat reservation had been moved and he decided to give it a \u201cwide berth\u201d in order to \u201cavoid conflict\u201d in the chamber.<\/p>\n

He claimed he had been involved in a \u201cphysical altercation\u201d with another MP on the day of the state opening of parliament in May.<\/p>\n

It later emerged his reservation had been removed by Commons staff as it did not have the proper date stamp.<\/p>\n

Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader, told Sky News on Thursday morning that her party\u2019s MPs were involved in the May incident mentioned by Farage.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cMy understanding \u2013 I didn\u2019t see it, I wasn\u2019t there \u2013 but my understanding is that he physically shoved one of our female MPs out of the way, and that one of our male MPs then challenged him on that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t see it, I didn\u2019t witness what happened, but that was several months ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd let\u2019s be really clear: it\u2019s Reform UK that had a problem at their conference with bundling female journalists and members out of their hall. So, we\u2019ll take no lessons from them on this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Afterwards, Voaden posted<\/a> on social media in response to Farage\u2019s claim that he was at risk of \u201canother physical altercation\u201d: \u201cWe both know that\u2019s not true Nigel don\u2019t we?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still waiting for the apology you were required to write to me \u2026 Though I won\u2019t hold my breath.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked for a response to the accusations, Robert Jenrick, Reform\u2019s shadow chancellor, said: \u201cYou know what? I am sick to death of these pathetic Westminster debates.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing about Reform politicians is, yeah, we love parliament, the institution of parliament. I go there every day. I speak in parliament. I represent my constituents.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019m much more interested about, actually, the issues, trying to change this country, getting out and about outside of the bubble. And I\u2019m not interested in even responding, dignifying the nonsense that Daisy Cooper is talking about there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A female Liberal Democrat MP has accused Nigel Farage of shoving her aside at the state opening of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-817895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}