Nigel Farage, the new leader of the UK’s populist Reform Party and thorn in the side of the governing Conservatives, has been doused with a drink in his first full day of campaigning for a seat in parliament in the July 4 election.

On Monday, Farage produced the biggest shock of the campaign yet by announcing he would head Reform and run in the election, a major blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, whose Conservative Party trails Labour badly in surveys.

Farage is best known for helping to lead the successful campaign in 2016 for Britain to leave the European Union. His popularity has put pressure on a succession of Conservative leaders to be tougher on immigration.

Shortly after Farage launched his campaign in the seat of Clacton-on-Sea, south-east England, on Tuesday (local time) a woman threw a large cup of what looked like a milkshake over him as he left a pub, footage posted on social media showed.

He appeared unharmed as he was led away by security. He later posed smiling in a video posted on X holding a McDonald’s cup and joking: “My milkshake brings all the people to the rally.”

My milkshake brings all the people to the rally. 🙌 pic.twitter.com/SqF9XonuAg

— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) June 4, 2024

Reform chairman Richard Tice called the attacker a “juvenile moron”. He said the party – which he led until Farage took over on Monday – would not be intimidated and the incident would help it win hundreds of thousands more votes.

Police said they had arrested a 25-year-old woman on suspicion of assault.

Interior Minister James Cleverly condemned the incident as unacceptable.

A former commodities trader who is often pictured with a cigarette and pint of beer in hand, Farage has for three decades been the figurehead of euroscepticism in Britain, and is no stranger to controversy.

Charismatic and divisive, he has in the past made comments that his opponents have called racist.

During the Brexit campaign, Farage appeared in front of a poster showing lines of migrants under the slogan “Breaking Point”; last month he said some young Muslims did not share British values.

He was also doused in milkshake in 2019 while campaigning for the Brexit Party, Reform’s predecessor, in Newcastle before a European Parliament election.

Then, his attacker was ordered to pay for his suit to be cleaned after pleading guilty to common assault and criminal damage.

-with AAP