The leader of Britain’s radical right party believes NATO and the EU are to blame for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine due to its eastward expansion, which gave Putin a “reason” to “go to war.”
Nigel Farage, leader of the radical right-wing British party Reform UK and former face of the Brexit campaign, believes that the European Union and NATO “provoked” the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The statements are causing controversy and have even provoked a reaction from the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, who believes that Farage is not only “completely wrong” but that he is “playing into Putin’s hands.”
In an interview with the BBC on Friday, Nigel Farage even said he admires Vladimir Putin “as a political operator” for the way he controls Russia and even argued that the West is to blame for the war.
“I stood up in 2014 in the European Parliament and said: ‘There is going to be a war in Ukraine.’ “Why did you say that?” Farage asked in the interview. “It was obvious to me that the eastward expansion of NATO and the European Union was giving this man a reason to say, ‘They’re going to come after us again.’ And to go to war.”
“We caused this war. Of course it’s our fault. “He used what we did as an excuse,” Nigel Farage added.
According to the British newspaper The Guardian, Farage’s statements caused controversy and criticism from several political leaders, at various points on the political spectrum.
On the Conservative Party side, for example, UK Home Secretary James Cleverly launched a scathing attack on Farage, lamenting that the radical right party leader “echoes Putin’s vile justification for the brutal invasion from Ukraine”. Fellow Conservative Ben Wallace, former Defense Minister, criticized Farage for being close to those who have already ordered the use of nerve agents in the United Kingdom.
For the Labor Party, the shadow defense minister, John Healey, described Farage’s statements as “shameful” and also considered that the leader of the radical right “has shown that he would rather lick Vladimir Putin’s boots than defend the Ukrainian people,” which makes him “unfit for any political role” in the United Kingdom, “let alone leading a serious party in parliament.”
Labor Party leader Keir Starmer also called Farage’s remarks “disgraceful.” “I have always been clear that Putin bears responsibility, sole responsibility, for Russian aggression against Ukraine, and we have always stood with Ukraine,” he said. “I took on the task of ensuring that the opposition was with the government on this issue.”
This Saturday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak claimed that Nigel Farage was “completely wrong” in what he said about the war in Ukraine.
“What he said is completely wrong and simply plays into Putin’s hands,” Sunak said, quoted by Sky News. “He is a man who ordered the use of nerve agents on the streets of the United Kingdom and who makes deals with countries like North Korea. “This kind of appeasement is dangerous for the security of the UK, the security of our allies who trust us, and only emboldens Putin further.”
Nigel Farage, MEP between 1999 and 2020, was leader of UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party) between 2010 and 2016, having been one of the main faces of the campaign for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union (Brexit). . Farage is currently the leader of Reform UK, a radical right-wing, eurosceptic party.
Source: Observadora
