What was claimed
Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe called for the removal of teaching sign language in the UK.
Our verdict
False. A post supposedly showing Mr Lowe saying this was created by a satirical account.
Reform MP did not call for sign language teaching ban
A social media post supposedly shared by Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe calling for the removal of sign language teaching in the UK was created by a satirical account.
Screenshots of the fake post, which is made to appear as if it was shared by Mr Lowe’s X (formerly Twitter) account, have been shared on Facebook and X with no indication that it isn’t a real post from the MP. The supposed X post says:
“ReformUK are now tackling DEI madness head on. We are challenging @AngelaRayner to remove teaching any sign language in the UK. As it doesn't involve speaking English.”
But the image in question was originally shared on 7 February by an account called “Political Satirical”, which has since confirmed on Threads that it was created as satire.
Mr Lowe confirmed to Full Fact that he did not post this, and said: “I have spoken at length about scrapping translation for foreign languages, that clearly does not include sign language.”
We’ve contacted the account that first posted the fake screenshot for comment and will update this fact check if we receive a response.
We’ve previously fact checked several fake posts attributed to various politicians. Misinformation spread online about politicians can undermine trust in democracy. It’s important to consider whether what you are seeing is genuine before sharing it on social media.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as satire because this isn’t a real post written or shared by Rupert Lowe MP, but was instead created as satire.