Farage goes on the attack after Ukraine criticism

Foreign policy hasn’t featured much in this election – until now. Over the weekend, Nigel Farage’s suggestion that the West was partially to blame for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine produced an avalanche of cross-party criticism. Both Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak labelled his comments ‘disgraceful’, while the Mail on Sunday claimed a member of president Zelensky’s staff had suggested Farage was infected with the ‘virus of Putinism’. Rather than back down, the Reform leader has opted to reprise the pugilists’ playbook and counterpunch with fire.

Speaking to supporters at Maidstone this lunchtime, he told them he would ‘never, ever defend’ Vladimir Putin before insisting he would take ‘no lectures’ from either the Tories or Labour on matters of foreign affairs and defence. In an act of political judo, he used the Russia row to turn his opponents’ attacks on themselves. Declaring that there had been ‘almost no debate’ on these policy areas, he attacked the Tories for cutting the armed forces since 2010 and claimed that Keir Starmer and David Lammy would sign Britain up to a common European defence pact.