NIGEL FARAGE would make Margaret Thatcher’s war on unions “look like small fry,” the president of performing arts union Equity has warned.

A Reform UK-led government would pose an “existential threat” to unions, said Lynda Rooke at Equity’s annual conference on Saturday.

She predicted “any arts funding that exists will almost certainly disappear” with her union’s industry “high up the list for further cuts.

“And let’s be clear, the trade union movement itself will be seriously under attack. This is an existential threat,” she said. “It would make the attacks on trade unions by Thatcher’s government look like small fry.”

Speaking at Durham’s Miners’ Hall, she said: “These walls bear witness to some of that. But that will be nothing in comparison to the onslaught from a potential far-right government.”

She told of members from marginalised communities already being assaulted at work and harassed late at night by emboldened far-right thugs.