LONDON (AP) — Nigel FarageThe leader of Reform UK, the recently formed right-wing party that aims to wrest voters away from Britain’s ruling Conservatives in the July 4 general election, is facing widespread criticism for his claim that the West pushed Russian President Vladimir Putin to traps. Ukraine, including acting as a conciliator.
In a BBC television interview broadcast on Friday evening, Farage drew a link between NATO and the European Union’s eastward expansion in recent decades and the invasion.
Farage claimed that in 2014, when he was a member of the European Parliament, he warned of a possible war in Ukraine, saying “we have provoked this war.” It is unclear whether his warning came before or after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in February 2014.
“It was clear to me that the increasingly eastward expansion of NATO and the European Union gave this man a reason for his Russian people to say, ‘They’re coming for us again’ and go to war,” Farage said. “It’s, you know, of course it’s his fault – he used what we did as an excuse.”
Farage’s critics from across the political spectrum rejected his statement, with many describing him as a Putin apologist.
In perhaps his sharpest criticism of Farage, Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it was “completely wrong” to say the West had pushed Putin to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“This is a man who has deployed nerve agents on the streets of Britain, who is making deals with countries like North Korea,” Sunak said. “And this kind of appeasement is dangerous to British security, the security of our allies who rely on us, and only emboldens Putin further.”
Many Conservatives, including Sunak, have largely refrained from overly criticizing Farage, who, although not a lawmaker in the British parliament, had enormous influence on Britain’s vote to leave the EU in 2016.
The concern among many Conservatives is that attacking him too harshly will further alienate many Conservative voters who sympathize with his tough rhetoric on issues such as immigration and Brexit. In many constituencies across the country, conservatives have argued that a vote for reform would ensure that the main opposition Labor party would sweep through the middle and win.
“I think Nigel Farage is a bit like that pub owner we’ve all met at the end of the bar, who often says, ‘I ran the country’ and gives very simplistic answers to basically, I’m afraid it’s in the 21st century is complex. problems,” Ben Wallace, the former Conservative defense secretary who has stepped down as an MP, told BBC radio.
This is the first general election that Reform UK is contesting and has seen a surge after Farage said in early June he would lead the party and contest the seat of Clacton, in south-east England. Although the party is not expected to win many seats, Farage is currently favorite to win his race and eventually enter Parliament after seven attempts.
Meanwhile, John Healey, who is set to become Defense Secretary if the left-wing Labor Party wins the election as the polls indicate, said Farage would “rather lick Vladimir Putin’s boots than stand up for the people of Ukraine .”
