Deepfake adverts showing Nigel Farage kicking, grabbing and even pulling a gun on Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey have flooded X, prompting the Reform UK leader to contact the platform “to the highest level” in a bid to get them taken down.
The AI-generated images, which have appeared repeatedly to UK users in recent days, depict the two men on a set resembling BBC Question Time — a show Bailey has never actually appeared on. Some versions show bruising on their faces. Despite appearing to be videos with a prominent ‘play’ button, none of the posts contain clips; the symbol appears to have been added to trick users into clicking.
“Farage urges X to remove AI deepfakes of him fighting Bank governor, as Bailey calls them scams.”
Farage, speaking to reporters during a visit to Grangemouth on Tuesday, said he did not know “whether to laugh or whether to be angry” about the fakes. “The trouble is it’s an AI fake but it looks real in every way, and people know that the governor and I have had our disagreements over things over the years,” he said.
In a post on X on Monday evening, he wrote: “You may have seen some bizarre AI videos on this platform today. Whilst Andrew Bailey and I have our disagreements, I would never take it that far!” Reform UK contacted X on Monday “to the highest level”, Farage said, adding he hoped the platform would act “incredibly quickly” to remove the ads.
The Bank of England has also urged X users to report the adverts. Governor Andrew Bailey issued a statement condemning the posts: “Unfortunately, fake adverts impersonating the Bank of England and other central banks are on the rise. These scams are designed to criminaly exploit the public, especially the vulnerable, when they are online. I would urge everyone to stay vigilant and report these scams. That way authorities can better root out digital deception like this and permanently remove the fraudsters responsible for what is a truly online scourge.” Bailey added that the Bank had reported the adverts to both X and Reform UK.
Many of the adverts viewed by the BBC were posted by X user accounts with blue ticks — a symbol indicating a subscription to the platform’s Premium tier. The posts link to articles promoting AI cryptocurrency trading schemes or apps. Cybersecurity experts Bitdefender told The Telegraph that the images were part of a “global, co-ordinated investment scam ecosystem” and that the network appeared to be linked with Russian-language scammers pursuing “financially motivated criminal activity”.
Farage and Bailey are far from the only public figures being exploited. Last week, Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis said he had been left in tears after a viewer contacted him to say she had given money to a company she believed he had endorsed. “She then goes on to explain how she really wanted her flat and she gave more and more money. And she has nothing left to help with her disability,” he wrote on X.
Tech Secretary Liz Kendall, speaking to Good Morning Britain, said she would “definitely act on this”. “I am really worried about these issues where people’s faces are being used, AI is using fake images of people, these so-called digital replicas,” she said.
The fake ads continue to circulate, with one X user writing: “Getting so many of these from different angles I’m starting to believe Farage actually did have a bust up with Andrew Bailey on the set of question time.”