A long-time campaigner for the Reform Party has told GB News about her unsettling experiences while canvassing in Clacton, Essex, where she says she felt intimidated by groups of migrants.
Julie Hudson, who volunteered to help get Nigel Farage elected earlier this year, told this broadcaster young men speaking in foreign languages heckled her while she canvassed for Reform.
Speaking about two separate incidents, Hudson detailed how encounters in broad daylight left her feeling threatened and uneasy.
Hudson, 54, described one incident where she was walking with her dog after canvassing in the town centre.
Nigel FarageREUTERS"I was going down one of the back streets, not too far from where the [Reform] offices are.”
“There were three guys walking down the road behind me, they started heckling and some sort of strange whistle, which isn't like a wolf whistle, it's more like a dog whistle.”
Julie Hudson spoke of her experience in Clacton
GB News
“And then they started jeering, laughing," she recalled.
As she tried to avoid the group by crossing the road, they followed her.
Nigel Farage is the leader of Reform UK GB News"So the next thing for me to do was speed up my pace as quickly as I could get back to the office," Hudson explained, noting how the incident occurred around 2:30 in the afternoon, a time when such behaviour seemed particularly surprising.
Hudson said that she felt threatened, especially as the group seemed to match her pace.
"The more I was speeding up, the more they were speeding up. So that gave me a bit of a sense of urgency."
A separate encounter occurred while Hudson was canvassing in Clacton’s town centre. "There were two guys coming towards me... They gave me the look of, well, death.”
She continued: “One of them put his foot out as if to kick my dog, muttered something in a foreign language, glared at me, and once again I had a rosette on, glared at that and then carried on walking."
Hudson said this behaviour left her feeling "rather intimidated" and unfamiliar with such aggression, which she attributed to her campaign rosette and the presence of her dog.
Hudson believes that Clacton, and the country more broadly, has become a more dangerous place due to immigration.
She pointed to changes in her local community as evidence of a growing sense of unease.
"In the past six months, that's really started to change, and you're having to think when you go out now... make sure you've got somebody with you, or got your dog with you, so make sure you've got your phone to hand."
When asked about accusations of racism in light of her concerns, Hudson pushed back, asking critics to consider her experiences.
She asked: “Have you had this experience happen to you or any of your family or friends?... because a few of my friends have come to me with the same sort of thing in the past."
Hudson’s comments come after Nigel Farage was assaulted during the general election campaign.
The Reform Party leader was ‘milkshaked’ outside of a pub in Clacton, and a man threw a coffee cup at him while he was campaigning on a bus.
In August Josh Greally, who admitted to throwing items at Mr Farage, was sentenced at Barnsley Magistrates' Court to six weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months.
He was also ordered to complete 120 hours of unpaid work, participate in 20 rehabilitation activity days, and pay £85 in court costs along with a £154 surcharge.
