Anglesey shopkeeper bans Reform UK supporters from his store

Joe Horner, who has run Anglesey Watches and Clocks, in the Mini Mall in Holyhead for the last 14 years, said he was “shocked, angry and disgusted” at the reaction of both men to a female protester being dragged by her hair and hit with a walking stick.

Mr Farage said at the Birmingham conference: “That poor young girl… she looked like she was going to do herself an injury, didn’t she?”, while Mr Jenrick, MP for Newark, said “oh, boohoo”.

Mr Horner, 59, placed a note on the front window of his shop on Monday evening (September 7), which read that Reform UK supporters are “no longer welcome effective immediately”.

It added: “Following the scenes over the weekend of Farage laughing on stage as a woman was assaulted in front of him, then joking that she'd ‘injured herself,’ I've taken the difficult decision that I no longer wish to offer my skills to supporters of this abusive excuse for a human being.

“My disgust at his behaviour was only compounded by Jenrick's flippant response when challenged about it on camera, and by the seemingly endless online defence of the assault from Reform supporters.

“This is not about politics; it's about basic decency. A mob assaulting a woman is never funny, and it's never the victim's fault. It's as simple as that.

“The company people keep says a lot about who they are and, if somebody chooses to keep that sort of company, then I have nothing to offer them. Thank you for your understanding.”

Speaking to the Chronicle, Mr Horner said he “absolutely” stands by his message, despite receiving online abuse as a result.

He said he was equally angry at the incident itself as he was by the “wave of online support” for Reform UK which followed it.

“It’s not actually to do with Reform as a party overall - it’s to do with that particular incident,” he said.

“What they should have done is condemn what happened. I don’t want to see somebody being assaulted glorified like that.

“A lot of people people have said: ‘It’s about time somebody stood up’. There have been a couple of threats, and one-star Google reviews – including ‘they didn’t serve our ice cream on time’ - but we were well aware that was going to happen.

“It was shocking to see laughter, joking and victim-blaming at her expense. That’s not something for the head of a political party to be saying.

“I honestly don’t see how anyone can support somebody who gets up and says that.”

Demonstrators were thrown out of the main conference hall four times at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, where Reform UK held their annual get-together.

They interrupted Mr Farage’s keynote speech, shortly after his deputy Richard Tice had a banner displayed during his own address referencing the scandal around a donation to Mr Farage.

The Reform UK leader laughed during the disruption and said: “We’ve got a screamer. Oh dear.”

Mr Farage said on Saturday the criticism was “one-sided”.

He added: “It’s all one way, isn’t it? I can have milkshakes chucked in my face, be bashed over the head with placards and that’s all fine. That’s absolutely fine.

“Yet, well, we have a big event that people have paid a lot of money to come to and we get people there trying to disrupt it and we remove them. Suddenly we’re in the wrong. Utter nonsense.”

Reform UK was approached for comment.