Kmflett's Blog

Farage & the British tradition of heckling

Rachel Reeves was heckled by a Reform supporter in Leeds on 20^th May. There are ample reasons for criticising the Chancellor but the male Reform supporter seemed more interested in shouting profanities at Ms Reeves. That is not heckling. Its abuse.

Perhaps unsurprisingly Farage then tweeted that he’d like to buy the abusive Reform supporter a pint while Zia Yusuf promised him a Peerage. We probably should not read too much into this because these tweets are not done by the individuals but by an intern at Reform HQ on Millbank.

Farage however has a record on heckling.

He was speaking at a Reform meeting on Doncaster on 26^th March 2025 when he was interrupted by hecklers from Stand Up To Racism. Farage claims to stand up for British traditions one of which is certainly heckling. However instead of an effective riposte Farage merely mouthed abuse calling one heckler a ‘loser’ which is Trump-speak and called security

It reflects the reality that while there are still very good public speakers out there, very few are to be found in Parliament, where MPs have mostly given up on the idea of engagement with a mixed audience.

Arguably the tradition survives virtually with the social media riposte.

One master of how to deal with the political heckler was Harold Wilson. Addressing a crowd in Birmingham in 1966 Wilson was talking about his public expenditure plans when a heckler cried, “What about Vietnam?” – the burning issue of the day. “The government has no plans to increase public expenditure in Vietnam,” rejoined Wilson. Heckler: “Rubbish!” Wilson: “I’ll come to your special interest in a minute, sir.”

The key to it is both an immediate response, but also a witty one that demeans the heckler and gets the audience on the side of the platform speaker.

I’m no great fan of Wilson, but in a democracy, both heckling and responses to it have a role to play that doesn’t involve calling security.