Reform leader Nigel Farage has been under sustained attack by the British press over the weekend for stating he believes Western NATO and EU expansionism contributed in provoking the Ukraine War, but notes the flak is always heaviest when you are over the target.
Speaking on the campaign trail on Monday, Nigel Farage hailed new polling for his upstart party which continues to climb ever higher, including four polls in the past three days putting his Reform UK party in second place nationally. If realised in next month’s General Election, such a result would be a historic upset, overturning a century of British political convention.
But after weeks of neutral or even favourable coverage for his return to power — a cynic might suggest as a move by the press to promote the Farage brand as a tool with which to destroy the Conservatives — the press appears to have performed a rapid turn and is now attacking him for his long-held position that NATO and EU expansionism in Ukraine had given Putin a justification to sell the Ukraine invasion to his people.
Mr Farage said on Monday that he stood by his remarks, pointed out many prominent figures shared the view, and in any case asserted he wouldn’t take lessons from the very politicians who had done so much harm to Britain’s defence.
Eviscerating President Biden for handing Afghanistan to the Taliban, Cameron and Hollande for destroying Libya and starting the Europe Migrant Crisis, and Labour for the deadly and ruinous Iraq War, Mr Farage said even as warmonger politicians eyed more conflict, they continued to run the military down to a shadow of its former self.
Arguing to call China and Russia’s bluff by presenting a united NATO front as a means to prevent conflict, not cause it by repeated displays of weakness, the Brexit leader said:
…maybe these are the most important things I’ll say in the entire general election campaign. There has been virtually no debate on defence whatsoever… I say these things this morning to you because I have no doubt the world is in a more dangerous place right now than it has been at any point since the Cuban Missile Crisis over 60 years ago. Couple of years back we would have thought war on a global scale was inconceivable, but now we all harbour that doubt and that worry at the back of our minds.
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Since 2010 this Conservative government has relentlessly driven down the ability of our Army, our Air Force, and our Navy. They have cut it down to a stunning degree… this matters because without the Americans, NATO is nothing. And the Americans increasingly think we are not a serious player. They’ve always had the highest regard for our forces, especially our special forces. But unless we start to build up our size America will stop taking us seriously, NATO will stop taking us seriously, and the world will be a more dangerous place. You don’t get peace through weakness, you get peace through strength. You get peace through deterrence… we need stronger defences, a better union with NATO, but we only go to war as a very last extreme. I will campaign for peace wherever it is possible.
On the attacks he’s faced in recent days over saying the European Union and the American-led NATO alliance’s eastwards expansion was likely a contributing factor in Vladimir Putin deciding to invade Ukraine in 2014, Mr Farage made clear he condemned Putin himself, but stated the fact he was receiving so much criticism now from the legacy parties showed he was dangerously close to exposing the truth.
He said of those attacks in the press: “I’ve done none of those things. I would never, ever defend Putin, and think his behaviour in Ukraine and elsewhere has been reprehensible. But if we’re going to think towards peace at some time in the future it might be helpful to understand what went wrong in the first place. Our leaders have no history of history, no knowledge of Russian psychology. None of this justifies what [Putin has] done.”
As for that ‘flak’ he has been taking of late, Mr Farage related encouragement he received from a military veteran of the Second World War’s Bomber Command. He said the man had told him: “Let me tell you, you only start taking heavy flak when you’re getting near the target. I think you must be doing very well”.
Today is something of a super-Monday for Mr Farage, who is addressing two large, last-minute rallies at opposite ends of the country. Having made these remarks on national security in Kent this morning, he is due to address the largest rally of the campaign yet — possibly by any party — in Devon, where up to 1,500 are expected to attend tonight.
