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Nigel Farage has been accused of “grossly irresponsible” scaremongering after he hastily labelled a car crash in London’s museum district as a terror attack.

The former Ukip leader faced a backlash after suggesting the collision outside the Natural History Museum on Saturday afternoon was terror-related despite no official confirmation from police.

Just minutes after the crash, the Brexiteer gave an interview to Fox News claiming that officers were “clearly not only treating this as a terrorist incident but it looks to me like they expect there could be more”.

He later posted a clip of the interview on social media with the caption: “We have 3,000 terrorists living in the UK and 23,000 people known to security services who could do us harm.”

Mr Farage acknowledged in a later tweet that the incident in South Kensington was being treated as a road traffic collision following an official statement from police confirming it was not terror-related.

He wrote: “Met say incident in South Kensington is a traffic collision. But huge police response shows the state of high alert the country finds itself in.”

His comments sparked widespread anger, with critics accusing him of scaremongering and using the incident to further his political agenda.

Islington North Labour MP Wes Streeting wrote on Twitter: “Not being treated as a terrorist incident but that doesn’t stop Farage telling Fox that it is.”

Times journalist Matt Chorley tweeted: “Am quite sure Nigel is about to tweet a clarification and apology for being a shameless attention-seeker. Yep. Any minute now.”

“Grossly irresponsible again. Police are not treating this as a terrorist incident but that doesn’t stop Farage and Fox using it to fan hate,” the Election Data Twitter account said.

Pedestrians injured as car mounts pavement in museum district 7 show all Pedestrians injured as car mounts pavement in museum district 1/7 Emergency services rushed to South Kensington just after 2.20 2/7 Armed police are at the scene as the investigation continues REUTERS 3/7 Eyewitnesses said the car mounted the pavement outside the museums REUTERS 4/7 The area was evacuated and a cordon was put in place REUTERS 5/7 Police detained a man at the scene 6/7 Police at the scene REUTERS 7/7 Officers and paramedics speaking to someone who was injured in the incident REUTERS 1/7 Emergency services rushed to South Kensington just after 2.20 2/7 Armed police are at the scene as the investigation continues REUTERS 3/7 Eyewitnesses said the car mounted the pavement outside the museums REUTERS 4/7 The area was evacuated and a cordon was put in place REUTERS 5/7 Police detained a man at the scene 6/7 Police at the scene REUTERS 7/7 Officers and paramedics speaking to someone who was injured in the incident REUTERS

Brendan Cox, the husband of murdered Labour MP Jo Cox, wrote: “What yesterday showed was Farage/Hopkins etc will seek to spread fear and panic at every given chance. They do the job of terrorists for them.”

MailOnline columnist Katie Hopkins had posted a series of tweets warning tourists: “Right now, London is not worth the risk” and apologising for the state of the city, saying that Mayor Sadiq Khan had “let us all down”.

She also accused the BBC of peddling “state propaganda” in a post that included screenshots of its website in which the incident was described as a “crash”.

After police confirmed the crash was not being treated as terror related, Ms Hopkins tweeted: “I am deleting all tweets from the last two hours. I hope you stay safe. Xx”

Eleven people were injured after a minicab ploughed into a crowd of pedestrians in Exhibition Road at about 2.20pm. Nine of them were taken to hospital and have since been discharged.

The driver of the minicab was arrested on suspicion of dangerous driving. He was released from custody under investigation on Sunday.