Nigel Farage calls for ban on full face coverings
Reform UK leader cites anti-migrant protests where masked individuals blocked roads and damaged vehicles.
AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made
Groups of masked men descended on Dover Port this weekend (Picture: BBC)
Photograph: Metro News (embedded from source)
What this story says
- Nigel Farage has called for a ban on all full face coverings in public spaces, including religious ones.
- He described face coverings as a 'menace' and stated their purpose is to bully and intimidate.
- The call follows anti-migrant demonstrations where masked protesters blocked roads at the Port of Dover and damaged vehicles in Portsmouth.
- Policing minister Sarah Jones blamed the Conservatives for community frustration, while shadow home secretary Chris Philp suggested leaving the ECHR and deporting illegal immigrants.
Who covered it
Percentages are shares of the 9 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. 1 of the 10 outlets we know ran this story carry no rating and are not counted in them. Coverage measured .
Trust
42/100
Craft
65/100
Hype
41/100
10 sources · methodology
Thin on the right so far
Only 1 of the 9 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated right.
This story is still being watched, so it is a count and not yet a finding. Coverage keeps arriving for hours after an event, and a side that has published nothing this morning may publish by tonight. If it is still true when we stop checking, we will say so plainly.
Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, has called for a ban on all full face coverings in public spaces. He stated that these coverings are a 'menace' and that their purpose is to bully and intimidate. Farage made this call after masked protesters participated in anti-migrant demonstrations over a weekend. These protests included blocking roads to the Port of Dover and damaging official vehicles in Portsmouth.
In a piece written for The Telegraph, Farage referenced the Dover protest, stating that while he supported the right to protest, the method was wrong. He argued that face coverings, whether worn by gang members or 'Antifa' extremists, are used to intimidate. He added that seeing masked individuals in public should not be accepted in modern Britain. Reform UK's position, he said, is for a ban on all full-face coverings, including religious ones, asserting that people in a civilised society should be identifiable.
Divergent views on protest causes
Policing minister Sarah Jones stated in the Commons that the frustration seen in communities today is a result of chaos and crisis in the years before the 2024 general election. She attributed the current situation to the 'broken system' inherited by the government. In response, shadow home secretary Chris Philp argued that to address public anger, the government should leave the European Convention on Human Rights and deport illegal immigrants immediately. Former home secretary Suella Braverman commented that people in her constituency are 'terrified, furious, and desperate', and are not 'far-right racists'.
What the coverage left out
None of the left or centre-rated reports mention the specific detail that Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary has started an investigation into potential assaults and criminal damage related to the Portsmouth protest, nor that Kent Police assistant chief constable Nigel Brookes stated the only criminal offence under investigation was damage to a road. No right-rated outlet ran this story.
Still developing. We have re-checked which outlets are covering this 9 times, most recently on 8 Sept 2026, 10:00, and will add the sides that appear.
How other outlets pictured it
Which photograph to run is each newsroom’s own choice. The leaning beside a name is that outlet’s published rating, not a claim that the pictures divide along it. Every picture is shown from the outlet’s own server and links to the article it ran in.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has called for all face coverings to be banned following protests in Dover and Portsmouth
dailymail.com — embedded from source
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has called for a ban on full face coverings in public
Irish News — embedded from source
How each side covered it
Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.
Left
5 rated outlets
- The left-rated reports led with Nigel Farage's call for a ban on full face coverings in public, including religious ones. They reported his description of face coverings as a 'menace' and his assertion that their purpose is to bully and intimidate. These reports also noted that the call followed anti-migrant demonstrations where masked protesters blocked roads at the Port of Dover and damaged vehicles in Portsmouth. The left-rated reports included statements from policing minister Sarah Jones blaming the Conservatives for community frustration and shadow home secretary Chris Philp suggesting leaving the ECHR and deporting illegal immigrants.
Centre
3 rated outlets
- The centre-rated reports focused on Nigel Farage's call for a ban on all face coverings on Britain's streets, citing anti-migrant protests in Dover and Portsmouth. They reported Farage's characterisation of coverings as a 'menace' designed to bully and intimidate, and his statement that the sight of masked individuals would have been unimaginable a generation ago. The centre-rated reports mentioned the protests involved men in black outfits and balaclavas blocking roads to the Port of Dover and clashes with police in Portsmouth. They also included Farage's statement that Reform UK is calling for a ban on all full-face coverings, including religious ones, to maintain trust in a free and open society.
Right
1 rated outlet
We have not written our reading of the right coverage of this story. The right-rated outlets that ran it are listed below.
Questions about this coverage
- How did the left and right cover Nigel Farage calls for ban on full face coverings?
- Of the 9 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 56% are rated left, 33% are rated centre, 11% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it, which was 10. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
- Is Nigel Farage calls for ban on full face coverings left or right?
- Too few of the outlets on this story carry a published leaning rating to say. 9 of them do, and this site does not characterise a field under 12: at that size one newsroom filing moves the share by ten points. The percentages above are the count as it stands.
- Is the coverage of Nigel Farage calls for ban on full face coverings biased?
- Nigel Farage calls for ban on full face coverings is one event reported by 10 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
- Which side is not reporting Nigel Farage calls for ban on full face coverings?
- When we first saw this story, outlets rated right had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
- Which outlets covered Nigel Farage calls for ban on full face coverings?
- 10 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
- What is Nigel Farage calling for?
- Nigel Farage is calling for a ban on all full face coverings in public spaces, including those worn for religious reasons. He described such coverings as a 'menace' that are used to bully and intimidate.
- Why has Nigel Farage made this call?
- The call follows recent anti-migrant demonstrations where masked protesters blocked roads at the Port of Dover and damaged official vehicles in Portsmouth. Farage stated that these events prompted his demand for a ban on face coverings.
- What was the reaction from other politicians?
- Policing minister Sarah Jones blamed the Conservatives for community frustration. Shadow home secretary Chris Philp suggested leaving the ECHR and deporting illegal immigrants to reduce public anger. Former home secretary Suella Braverman described people in her constituency as 'terrified, furious, and desperate'.
Read it at the source
10 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.
Left
5- Nigel Farage calls for ban on face coverings in public after anti-migrant protes (opens Metro News in a new tab)
Metro News — is Metro News biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Farage calls for ban on face coverings in public after anti-migration protests (opens perspectivemedia.com in a new tab)
perspectivemedia.com — is perspectivemedia.com biased? Our profile of this outletOpinion
- Farage calls for ban on face coverings in public after anti-migration protests (opens Irish News in a new tab)
Irish News — is Irish News biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Farage calls for ban on face coverings in public after anti-migration protests (opens The Independent (US) in a new tab)
The Independent (US) — is The Independent (US) biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Farage calls for ban on face coverings in public after anti-migration protests (opens The Independent in a new tab)
The Independent — is The Independent biased? Our profile of this outlet
Centre
3- Farage calls for face covering ban including balaclavas and religious veils (opens Belfast Live in a new tab)
Belfast Live — is Belfast Live biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Farage calls for a ban on all face coverings on Britain's streets (opens dailymail.com in a new tab)
dailymail.com — is dailymail.com biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Farage calls for ban on face coverings in public after anti-migration protests (opens Evening Standard in a new tab)
Evening Standard — is Evening Standard biased? Our profile of this outlet
Right
1Not rated
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