‘Lying about migrants eating swans is a profound mistake for Nigel Farage’

Read time: 4 mins

In brief…

• Nigel Farage claims migrants are eating swans stolen from UK parks, despite there being no evidence to support this, directly copying Trump’s 2024 claims migrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.
• The News Agents say Farage, like Trump, is dropping this disinformation into public conversation and then backing away, letting others spread their words.
• This could prevent Reform UK from appealing to mainstream, centrist voters, due to Trump’s unpopularity in the UK, and reliance on right-wing conspiracy theories.

What’s the story?

Nigel Farage claims migrants are stealing, killing and eating swans from parks in London.

There is no evidence to support this, and the Royal Parks, where Farage claimed the birds were being taken, have issued a statement to say this has not happened.

And if this sounds familiar, it’s almost identical to the false claims pushed by Donald Trump and JD Vance in September 2024, when they claimed migrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio during the election campaign.

It worked for them. The claims were false, but it swung national conversation onto migrants, which they continue to successfully demonise with blurred lines between facts and absolute fiction.

Farage, now echoing the US president almost word for word, will be hoping it brings similar success in the UK, but could this be latest in a series of “profound mistakes” for the formerly flourishing Reform UK?

‘What the f*** is Farage doing?’

Not only did Farage share disinformation about migrants eating swans in the UK, his acolyte Andrea Jenkyns followed his lead, claiming she had seen migrants stealing ducks.

There is no evidence to support this claim either – but that’s the point. The technique, employed by both Trump and Farage, is to drop a shocking claim, then back away slowly while other people let it spread and grow.

“You allow the idea to just percolate that it might be true, that he might believe it,” Jon Sopel says.

“Farage just nudges the conversation in that direction without any accountability or evidence base to suggest it. You just throw these things out there, and you see what happens.”

This strategy didn’t affect Trump’s popularity in polls ahead of the 2024 US election.

“A lot of people thought this was going to be an absolute catastrophe for Trump to invoke this idea that people were eating the cats and dogs – which they weren't – but it focused the conversation on immigrants,” Jon adds.

“So many of the tactics and the methods of Nigel Farage are straight out of the Trump playbook.”

Is this likely to backfire for Reform?

First of all, Donald Trump is not popular in the UK, even with right-wing, conservative-leaning voters.

Recent YouGov polling shows just 19% of British people have a positive view of Trump – and Reform will need to appeal to bigger numbers than that if it intends to give Labour a serious challenge at the next General Election.

Leaning into that fringe, right-wing thinking will also do serious damage to Reform UK’s attempts to be taken seriously as a political party, one with centrist policies that could reliably govern the country.

“Farage is making a profound series of mistakes, and I don't think this is in isolation,” says Lewis Goodall.

“The Reform conference contained a series of cranks and weirdos and very odd things said, including conspiracy theories about medicine.”

During the event, in early September, anti-vaxx doctor Aseem Malholtra claimed King Charles's cancer was likely caused by the Covid-19 vaccine.

"At the start of the year, all of the briefing coming out of Reform said it was seeking to expand its appeal and soften some of its rougher edges," Lewis adds.

"They know that if they're serious about going much above 30% in the polls, they need to try and assuage people of more middling opinion who are interested in some of the things that Farage is saying, but are suspicious of those in his party and their past."

He says this attempt at re-branding was seen when Rupert Lowe was removed from the party in March 2025, but echoing Trump rhetoric so precisely could seriously backfire.

"Trump is seen to represent the more extreme opinions of the online right, and that is exactly the opposite way of expanding your appeal," Lewis says.

He says associating Farage with Trump is a big opportunity for his political opponents, who can capitalise on the US president's lack of popularity in the UK.

"There was a time when Farage was appealing to people who just didn't like the level of taxation in Britain, or didn't like the state of 'broken Britain' – whatever that meant," Emily Maitlis says.

"Once you're going down the dead ends of swans, of vaccines, of letting people at your own conference talking about whether the King's cancer was caused by a vaccine, you have basically relinquished that centre ground, and people can just put you in the crank box too."

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