"At what point did we become North Korea?" That was the question Nigel Farage posed when asked by a US congressional committee about limitations on freedom of speech in the UK.
He was condemning the "awful authoritarian situation we have sunk into", which he claimed had led to various arrests including that of Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan over his views on challenging "a trans-identified male" in "a female-only space".
When I heard the question, I confess I thought that the leader of Reform UK had gone over the top.
Farage was comparing his country - my country - with a brutal dictatorship that murders, imprisons and tortures opponents.
And he was doing it in front of an influential audience of American lawmakers.
