Ed Davey says Farage becoming PM would mean mass shooting drills in our schools

Nigel Farage has been a regular target of Ed Davey during the Lib Dem conference (Picture: Getty)

Sir Ed Davey has claimed British schoolchildren would need to practice mass shooting drills if Reform take power at the next election.

The Lib Dem leader argued in a speech at his party conference in Bournemouth that Nigel Farage wants to turn the UK into a version of ‘Trump’s America’ – including a loosening of gun laws.

He said: ‘Imagine living in the Trump-inspired country Farage wants us to become. […] Where gun laws are rolled back, so schools have to teach our children what to do in case of a mass shooting.’

A Lib Dem source pointed to comments made by the now-Reform leader in 2014, where he described a ban on handguns that was brought in following the Dunblane massacre as ‘kneejerk legislation’.

Farage, who was then leading UKIP, added: ‘I think that we need a proper gun licensing system, which to a large extent I think we already have, and I think the ban on handguns is ludicrous.’

He has not made further public remarks about the UK’s gun laws since taking on his current role at Reform, and a source at the party said there were no plans to change them.

They said: ‘Ed Davey squanders his big moment spouting total madness. The Lib Dems are an irrelevant laughing stock.’

Davey’s comments were made during his keynote speech on the final day of his party’s autumn conference in Bournemouth.

Reform and Farage have been a key focus for speakers at the event – despite their concurrent complaints that the media covers the right-wing party too heavily.

Davey told Metro on the first day of the conference: ‘I think many people are worried about Nigel Farage’s divisive politics.

‘They want a party that’s going to hold this government to account for all its failures, but offer something different, something new, real change on the issues that they care about, and that’s the Liberal Democrats.’

Elsewhere in his speech today, Davey said the Reform leader had backed figures including Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Donald Trump, arguing: ‘So much that is broken in our country today is broken thanks to Nigel Farage.’

He also criticised the Labour government, saying it has ‘no vision for our country’s future’ and ‘no plan to really change things’ and suggesting the party is ‘looking more and more like Continuity Sunak’.

Opposition to Reform and figures like Trump and Elon Musk has formed a central theme of the conference, along with an apparent need to reclaim the concept of patriotism.

During a rally on the first day, former leader Tim Farron ended a barnstorming speech by wrapping himself in a Blackburn Rovers England flag while the sound system blasted out Land of Hope and Glory.

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