On October 14, 2025, a London courtroom became the unlikely stage for a political drama that has gripped the United Kingdom. Fayaz Khan, a 28-year-old Afghan national and self-styled TikTok influencer, was sentenced to five years in prison for making death threats against Nigel Farage, the high-profile leader of Reform UK. The case, which unfolded with all the intensity of a thriller, has sparked heated debate about online threats, immigration, and the risks faced by public figures in an era of livestreamed notoriety.
Khan’s journey to notoriety began in October 2024, when he posted a series of TikTok videos that targeted Farage directly. In one particularly chilling clip, Khan declared, “I’m coming to England. I’m going to pop, pop, pop,” while mimicking the firing of a gun and headbutting the camera. According to Evening Standard, he ended the video by pointing to a tattoo of an AK-47 machine gun on his face—a gesture that left little ambiguity about his intentions. The judge later described the video as “sinister and menacing,” emphasizing that “this was a threat to kill Nigel Farage, made with the intent that Nigel Farage would fear it would be carried out.”
But Khan’s threats were more than just empty posturing on social media. In a move that seemed ripped straight from a suspense novel, he livestreamed his own illegal journey across the English Channel in a small boat on October 31, 2024, as part of a group of 65 migrants. The UK authorities intercepted the vessel, and Khan was promptly arrested. The court heard that Khan was fleeing a jail term in Sweden for carrying a knife and had given false details to UK authorities in an attempt to conceal his criminal history. Prosecutor Peter Ratliff noted that Khan had accumulated 17 convictions between 2019 and 2024, including offenses involving drugs, dishonesty, vandalism, knife possession, and threatening behavior toward public officials. After his UK arrest, he was also sentenced to six months in prison in Sweden for another incident involving a knife.
During the sentencing at Southwark Crown Court, Mrs. Justice Steyn handed Khan a five-year prison term for the threat to kill Farage, with a concurrent eight-month sentence for breaching immigration rules. The judge was unequivocal about the gravity of the offense, stating, “Threats to kill MPs are exceptionally serious whether made in person or online. Being an MP is a vitally important public duty, it’s critical to a thriving and vibrant democracy that the general public have access to MPs, and politicians are not deterred from standing for, or remaining in Parliament by threats.”
The courtroom itself was tense, with Farage sitting in the public gallery just ten feet from Khan. As the sentence was delivered, Khan erupted into a furious tirade, insisting, “I’m not guilty of wanting to kill him. He’s going to be Prime Minister, I swear to God. You want to f my life...because he’s going to be Prime Minister.” He shouted at Farage, “You want to use me because you want to be Prime Minister. Just because you want to do that you want to f my life, you want to put me in prison.” Security staff struggled to restrain him as he was led away to the cells, according to Evening Standard.
Despite the outburst, Khan’s barrister, Charles Royle, offered an apology to Farage on his client’s behalf. Farage was seen accepting the apology with a nod, a gesture that seemed to momentarily defuse the charged atmosphere in the courtroom. However, outside the court, Farage expressed mixed feelings about the outcome. “Happy with the sentence, happy with the win, but I repeat, in 18 months time this violent criminal will be free on our streets,” he told reporters. “He said he’d rather go back to Afghanistan and we should satisfy that as soon as we can.”
The judge referenced an impact statement from Farage, noting that he was “very concerned and very worried for himself and his family.” She continued, “He found your threat to kill him and the description of how you intended to do so—taken together with the ease of finding him given his role and the fact you often wore a face covering, making it more difficult to identify you—alarming.”
Khan’s defense argued that he was not the violent gangster the prosecution portrayed but rather an “entertainer and rapper” who played a provocative online role to gain followers. Royle insisted, “The persona of Khan doesn’t really bear the rather literal interpretation the Crown give him of being an aggressive gangster or pseudo-gangster. He was playing a role to gain followers.” Khan, a father to a three-year-old son left behind in Sweden, had planned to claim asylum in the UK, citing his work for his father, an associate of former Afghan president Hamid Karzai. However, the prosecution countered that Khan had traveled through safe countries and could not claim to be seeking asylum from his legal difficulties in Sweden. Instead, they argued, his videos were “boasts” intended to encourage others to make similar crossings.
The broader context of the case has only fueled the ongoing debate about migration, social media, and the safety of politicians. Farage, who has long been a polarizing figure in British politics and a vocal critic of illegal immigration, seized on the incident to highlight his concerns. In a social media post reacting to the conviction, he asked, “How many more of these people are we letting into our country every single day?”
For many, the case underscores the dangers faced by public figures in the digital age, where threats can be made and disseminated to thousands in a matter of seconds. The judge’s remarks were clear: threats to MPs, whether online or in person, strike at the heart of the UK’s democratic system. “It’s critical to a thriving and vibrant democracy that the general public have access to MPs, and politicians are not deterred from standing for, or remaining in Parliament by threats,” she said.
As the dust settles on this high-profile case, questions remain about the balance between free speech and public safety, the challenges of policing online threats, and the complex realities of immigration in a world where borders are easily crossed but trust is not so readily rebuilt. What is certain is that the events in Southwark Crown Court have left a mark—not just on those directly involved, but on a nation grappling with the intersection of politics, technology, and security.
