The return of the ‘milkshake truthers’
Anti-Farage fanatics have gone bananas for a dairy-based conspiracy theory.

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Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was ‘milkshaked’ yesterday in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, as he launched his bid to become the town’s MP. Two people have since been arrested – the woman suspected of committing the dairy-based deed, and a man thought to have assaulted an emergency worker during the arrest.
You might think that being doused in a McDonald’s banana milkshake would be an experience most people try to avoid. Getting soggy, sticky clothes isn’t many people’s idea of fun, especially ahead of a big day of campaigning. Yet an alarming number of social-media users and influencers seem to believe that Farage might have orchestrated the whole ordeal himself.
Almost as soon as the pictures of a milkshake-soaked Farage splashed across social media, speculation swirled that the event had been staged. The timing was just too convenient, tinfoil-hatted tweeters claimed. It was all a stunt to make the public feel sympathy for old Nige and get them to vote Reform, they insisted.
The evidence? Firstly, the nearest McDonald’s is a bit of a walk away from the Wetherspoons pub where Farage was campaigning, and so it can’t possibly have been a spontaneous act. Secondly, the Reform leader was seen wearing a clean jacket and tie shortly after the incident. Finally, if you squint, the girl who threw the milkshake looks a bit like pro-Brexit influencer Emily Hewertson. Wake up, sheeple!
Despite this ‘proof’ not amounting to very much, the conspiracy theory quickly took off. Internet sleuths then dredged up pictures of Hewertson and Farage together, as if this were the smoking gun. Of course, all that really proved is that Hewertson and Farage had met before, which was never a secret, and perhaps that there is more than one blonde woman living in the United Kingdom.
Worst of all, it wasn’t just anonymous fruitcakes who flirted with the conspiracy theory. LBC presenter Shelagh Fogarty hinted that the milkshaking might not be all it seemed. TV pundit Narinder Kaur also seemed to mistake Hewertson for the real milkshaker (although she has since apologised).
In case it were not already abundantly clear, Farage did not arrange for himself to be covered in banana milkshake. The alleged thrower has since been identified by Essex Police as Victoria Thomas-Bowen, a 25-year-old OnlyFans model.
Incredibly, this isn’t even the first time a mad conspiracy theory has been whipped up involving milkshake and Nigel Farage. In 2019, during the European Parliament elections, he was pelted with a salted caramel milkshake while campaigning in Newcastle for the Brexit Party. Just days later, an elderly veteran and Brexit Party teller called Don McNaughton was also gunked in Aldershot. Then as now, Remainers lost their minds following the milkshakings, insisting that both must have been ‘false flags’. LBC host and arch-Remainer James O’Brien accused Farage of paying someone to lob the salted-caramel beverage over him, supposedly to ‘distract attention’ from an alleged money-laundering scandal. Octogenarian McNaughton was also widely accused of pouring some sort of substance down himself as a publicity stunt. New Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell questioned whether the ‘milkshaking’ had even taken place at all. (Although to be fair, he does know a thing or two about cooking up dodgy evidence.)
Once again, the oh-so-sensible Remainers seem to have fallen for a bananas conspiracy theory. These ‘milkshake truthers’ need to calm down and log off.
Lauren Smith is a staff writer at spiked.
Picture by: Getty.
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