Nigel Farage has issued an emotional response to the murder of Charlie Kirk. He said: “I regarded him as a friend. We got on incredibly well and I’m desperately sad.” But he warned the UK was “not so far away” from the divisions that have plagued America politics. The Reform UK leader said: “I was [in America] last week, on Capitol Hill, appearing before the Judiciary Committee. I noticed it’s so partisan in America, it’s so divided. We’re probably not very far behind, but it is so divided, it is so bitter.”
He added: “This is just awful and don’t underestimate the reaction to this in America. It’s going to be huge.” And Mr Farage said: “It’s a very, very dark day for American democracy, for Western democracy, and for free speech.” Charlie Kirk, a close ally of President Donald Trump, was shot and killed on Wednesday at a college event in what the state governor called a political assassination carried out from a rooftop.
No suspect was in custody late on Wednesday, though authorities were searching for a new person of interest, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Two people were detained earlier in the day, but neither was determined to have had any connection to the shooting and both have been released, Utah public safety officials said.
Authorities did not immediately identify a motive but the circumstances of the shooting drew renewed attention to an escalating threat of political violence in the United States that in the last several years has cut across the ideological spectrum.
Videos posted to social media from Utah Valley University show Mr Kirk speaking into a handheld microphone while sitting under a white tent emblazoned with the slogans The American Comeback and Prove Me Wrong, before a shot rings out.
The death was announced on social media by Mr Trump, who praised the 31-year-old Mr Kirk, the co-founder and chief executive of the youth organisation Turning Point USA, as “Great, and even Legendary.”
Speaking on GB News, Mr Farage said: “I met Charlie Kirk 10 years ago. I’ve been in the studios in Arizona, I spoke at Turning Point rallies, I spoke at a massive event for him in Arizona. I was with him in London, trying to get Turning Point UK off the ground.
“I went on his radio show on a regular basis. In fact, I often said, ‘No, Charlie, I’m too busy’, because he’d keep me on for goodness knows how long.
“I’m desperately sad for Erika, his lovely wife. He was a very happily married, committed family man, fundamentally strong Christian ethos and beliefs. He was phenomenal.
“He got Turning Point going. He was very young, and I’d met him just after he’d formed Turning Point, and he was there in Palm Beach, and people were backing him and supporting him.
“What he did around American universities was quite extraordinary. I mean, goodness me, we need someone like that in our country, going out and giving young people hope, fighting back against lecturers and professors who are deeply biased in the way they are teaching things.
“He was an enormous voice. And Trump regarded Charlie very highly indeed. He often went and turned up at Turning Point events. For a young man, he made a massive impression, and was an important part, I think, in reviving young people in America, students particularly, a belief in very, very good values.”
Mr Farage added: “He was a very influential figure, a really good guy. He was also great fun to be with; lively conversation, full of energy, and Charlie’s work rate was absolutely ridiculous. He just kept going and going and going.
“And also an incredible broadcaster. He had his own radio show. He’s on there for hours every day, big interaction with the audience.
“It’s a very, very dark day for American democracy, for Western democracy, and for free speech.
“I know that what will come after this will be a lot of fingers pointed at those that scream at those on the right as being neo-Nazi and ‘beneath contempt’ and all the rest of it. That will come in the next few days.
“I just think for now, I want to remember a friend. I want to remember somebody who was the most extraordinary, most influential political influencer in America over the course of the last decade.”
He said: “There are voices of intolerance in the public square. There are voices that wish to shut down on free speech and these are all very, very dangerous things.
“We don’t yet know who the shooter was. We don’t yet know his or her ideology was, but I would be surprised if this wasn’t, but it has to be, doesn’t it? Politically motivated in every way.
“The fact that you get a shot from 200 yards and you get somebody in the neck suggests that the person firing the gun was professional. The guy that had a go at Trump the first time wasn’t and killed somebody in the crowd.”