Grim figures show rise in shoplifting and knife crime as Tories blamed for crisis<\/a>![\"Lib](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/1_General-Election-2019.jpg\")
Lib Dem education chief Munira Wilson hit out at the Reform UK leader(Image: PA)<\/p>\n\u201cFor the record, absolutely no one has got an autism diagnosis through the GP \u2013 this is just incorrect, wrong, fake news. Children with SEND and disabled adults, including autistic people, are not victims who are being \u2018over diagnosed\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are people who face huge delays and long fights to get the most basic support across every aspect of their lives, including diagnosis, education, health and social care.”<\/p>\n
Mr Merritt called on Mr Farage to desist from making such claims, saying: \u201cSpreading misinformation only perpetuates stigma and makes life harder. We\u2019re calling on all politicians to drop the political point scoring and stand up for their autistic and other disabled constituents.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Minesh Patel, of mental health charity Mind, said the Reform leader was choosing to “demonise those who are struggling most in our society”. He said: \u201cThe only victims in this discussion are facts \u2013 which are continuously overlooked in favour of fuelling culture wars.”<\/p>\n
Lib Dem education spokeswoman Munira Wilson said it was a sign he was \u201claying the groundwork to axe crucial special needs provision in councils he\u2019s got his eye on\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cIf Nigel Farage had spent any time speaking to parents in his constituency, he\u2019d know he\u2019s barking up the wrong tree. The special needs crisis needs urgent repair – not his lazy rhetoric. We need a National Body for SEND to end the special needs postcode lottery now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking to journalists in Dover, Mr Farage said: \u201cI think you\u2019re the family GP, and I\u2019ve known your family for generations, and you\u2019re saying to me there\u2019s a real problem here with depression, or whatever it may be, it\u2019s quite hard for me as your GP to say \u2018no\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think any of these allocations should be done by family GPs. I think it should be done independently.”<\/p>\n
Latest data shows the number of children with education, health and care plans (EHCPs) in England rose by 71%, up by 180,000, between 2018 and 2024. And 1.24 million were given special educational needs support in 2023\/24.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Join our Mirror politics WhatsApp group to get the latest updates from Westminster<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nigel Farage was branded ‘completely out of touch’ and accused of spreading fake news after crass claims that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4317],"tags":[27251,105,11518,218,384,285,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-50895","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-aspergers-syndrome","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-liberal-democrats","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-nigel-farage","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114401740290237947","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Nigel](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/1_BRITAIN-POLITICS-PARTIES-REFORM-UK-PRESSER.jpg\")
Nigel Farage has come under fire for claiming mental illness is ‘overdiagnosed'(Image: AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n