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Sunak and Starmer condemn Farage as ‘completely wrong’ over Ukraine remarks

22 Jun 2024 4 minute read
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, appearing during a BBC General Election interview Panorama special, hosted by Nick Robinson. Photo Jeff Overs/BBC/PA Wire

Sir Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak have condemned Nigel Farage for his claim the West provoked the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Prime Minister Mr Sunak said the Reform UK leader was “completely wrong and only plays into Putin’s hands”, and likened the comments made in a BBC Panorama interview to appeasement of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Disgraceful

Labour leader Sir Keir called the remarks “disgraceful” and said anyone standing for Parliament should make clear Russia is the aggressor.

Mr Farage claimed “we provoked this war” in the BBC interview, while drawing a link between Nato and European Union expansion in recent decades and the conflict in eastern Europe.

Speaking to reporters during a campaign visit in London, Sir Keir said: “On the question of Farage, his comments were disgraceful.

“Anyone who is standing for Parliament ought to be really clear that Russia is the aggressor, Putin bears responsibility, and that we stand with Ukraine, as we have done from the beginning of this conflict, and Parliament has spoken with one voice on this since the beginning of the conflict.”

Asked by broadcasters about the remarks during an election campaign visit in London, Mr Sunak said: “What he said was completely wrong and only plays into Putin’s hands.”

‘Dangerous’

Mr Sunak added: “This is a man (Mr Putin) who deployed nerve agent on the streets of Britain, who is doing deals with countries like North Korea, and this kind of appeasement is dangerous for Britain’s security, the security of our allies that rely on us, and only emboldens Putin further.”

Mr Sunak’s criticism follows hot on the heels of his former defence secretary Ben Wallace, who likened Mr Farage to a “pub bore” and suggested he does not understand the “real world” of politics.

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said he did not “share any values” with Mr Farage.

“My message to the British people, we need to support the Ukrainian people,” Sir Ed added.

Speaking to journalists in Edinburgh, Scottish First Minister John Swinney accused Mr Farage of being a “traitor to the interests of the people on these islands”.

“I think these are some of the most appalling remarks I’ve heard, literally in my life, and they’re of an extraordinary degree of absurdity and danger,” he said.

“Vladimir Putin has voluntarily invaded a sovereign country and nobody provoked him to, nobody was a threat to Vladimir Putin.

“Nigel Farage has confirmed what all of us have suspected of him – that he is a dangerous man.

“And that he is a traitor to the interests of the people of these islands, and the people of Ukraine.”

Panorama

During Panorama Interviews on BBC One on Friday, Mr Farage was questioned about his opinion of Mr Putin.

He replied: “I said I disliked him as a person, but I admired him as a political operator because he’s managed to take control of running Russia.”

Mr Putin has been either Russian president or prime minister since 1999, after elections which have been described as rigged.

Mr Farage, a former member of the European Parliament, also said: “Right, I’ll tell you what you don’t know, I stood up in the European Parliament in 2014 and I said, and I quote, ‘There will be a war in Ukraine’.

“Why did I say that?

“It was obvious to me that the ever-eastward expansion of Nato and the European Union was giving this man a reason to his Russian people to say, ‘they’re coming for us again’ and to go to war.”

Mr Farage said he had been making similar comments “since the 1990s, ever since the fall of the (Berlin) wall”, and added: “Hang on a second, we provoked this war.

“It’s, you know, of course it’s his fault – he’s used what we’ve done as an excuse.”


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Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
3 months ago

Hey Vlad, count me and Remain in your New World Order/Axis of Evil…Respect Nige…
PS anything your hackers can do..know what I mean John…

Last edited 3 months ago by Mab Meirion
Annibendod
Annibendod
3 months ago

Farage has both a distant relationship with the truth and a close relationship with his own ego. Plenty of people have been critical of NATO expansion going back some time. Farage is far from the only one. Plenty of Russo-apologists on both Far Left and Far right. I’ve had the view going back 25 years that Putin is no democrat. The warning signs were there from the start. In the same way as I have always deplored the offshoring of our manufacturing as strategically inept – Yes that means Thatcher’s record on defence is dreadful – building up the wealth… Read more »

Mawkernewek
Mawkernewek
3 months ago
Reply to  Annibendod

Would you personally have volunteered to fight a war against Russia in 2014? Quite a journey from joining the Stop the War march in 2003.

Annibendod
Annibendod
3 months ago
Reply to  Mawkernewek

If called up yes. World of difference between the two conflicts. We should never have supported US imperialism in the Middle East. We should stand up to Russian imperialism in Eastern Europe. I’d have gone to fight in Spain had I been alive, likewise vs Nazi Germany.

Last edited 3 months ago by Annibendod
cablestreet
cablestreet
3 months ago

Farajski

Mawkernewek
Mawkernewek
3 months ago

I think it is a ploy by Farage to generate a bit of outrage from centrist politicians and pundits, a bit of extra free publicity, after all he works on the same principle as Trump that any publicity is good publicity.

cablestreet
cablestreet
3 months ago
Reply to  Mawkernewek

Well, Comrade Farajski seems to have shot himself in the foot over this one. Anybody talking about immigration now? Give somebody enough rope and all that!

Mawkernewek
Mawkernewek
3 months ago
Reply to  cablestreet

I’m not sure. He’s managed to manipulate Sunak and Starmer into publicly agreeing with each other, in the middle of an election campaign.
I’m no supporter of Farage and his views seem rather incoherent on this issue (and others), but it helps him present himself deceptively as the anti-establishment candidate facing an establishment in consensus.

Mawkernewek
Mawkernewek
3 months ago
Reply to  cablestreet

Comrade? Putin may be all sorts of things but he is certainly not a Communist.

cablestreet
cablestreet
3 months ago
Reply to  Mawkernewek

Fair point. Anyway let’s not let that get in the way of giving Farage the roasting he deserves.

Rob
Rob
3 months ago

Does Farage not know that NATO and the EU are two very different organisations? The EU is an economic alliance, and not a military one.

Steve Woods
Steve Woods
3 months ago
Reply to  Rob

Farage isn’t interested in what are know as facts.

He lives in his own twisted version of reality.

John Ellis
John Ellis
3 months ago
Reply to  Rob

I suspect pretty much any sort of pan-European institution is liable to stir up the morose suspicions of his sort of English nationalist! And that his absolute hostility to the EU will be the main driving factor for him here.

And that NATO’s not the real problem for him, given the the Americans take the lead in that alliance. And he’d take the instinctive view that as Yanks originally are a sort of variant of English folk, they’re essentially OK

Llyn
Llyn
3 months ago

In 2016 Boris Johnson made similar comments. The hypocrisy of the Tories and the right is that after the election Farage may well be in the running to be leader of the the Conservatives and all their members and their press will forget all this.

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
3 months ago

This is one route the UK could take,

The Fat Shanks Effect…

Putin’s little puppy kept the spooks in his pocket…

“We only look where the PM points”…

KGB in the House of Lords…Londongrad…

Lock them up in your new prisons, Clark of Kent…

Tory Crook Finder General…

Gareth
Gareth
3 months ago

What Farage is also saying is, that countries bordering Russia are not free to make sovereign decisions, like joining the EU, or NATO because Russia doesn’t like it, but he himself proclaimed, we needed Brexit to claim our own sovereignty and make our own decisions. He is arguing against himself, showing his hypocrisy, examine closely what he says, and you soon see the king is naked.

Last edited 3 months ago by Gareth
Welsh Patriot
Welsh Patriot
3 months ago

Unbelievable!
How to gain votes, by saying Ukraine started the war and you admire Vlad (the mad) Putin!
Does he have the same Media Team as Vaughan Gething?

John Ellis
John Ellis
3 months ago

‘Mr Farage claimed “we provoked this war” in the BBC interview, while drawing a link between Nato and European Union expansion in recent decades …’ It’s arguable that Farage, in what he’s said, has something of a point historically. I’m old enough to have clear memories of the ‘Cuban missile crisis’ in 1962 when Fidel Castro’s Cuba announced that his country had agreed to host Soviet weapons just a short distance across the sea from the southern shores of the USA. Back then Kennedy’s US administration responded with a hostility rather similar to Putin’s declared aversion to the decision of… Read more »

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