Nigel Farage has hit again at Boris Johnson after the previous prime minister labelled him “morally repugnant” over feedback he made in regards to the conflict in Ukraine.
The Reform UK chief accused Mr Johnson of “hypocrisy” as he brandished a duplicate of a newspaper entrance web page from 2016 that learn: “Boris blames EU for war in Ukraine”.
Showing on prime of a marketing campaign bus in Maidstone, Kent, Mr Farage identified that the previous London mayor as soon as blamed Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 on insurance policies in Brussels.
The Reform chief was talking after feedback he made final week – by which claimed the West and NATO “provoked” the Ukraine battle that started greater than two years in the past – generated a robust backlash.
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Mr Farage informed the BBC that he had been saying because the fall of the Berlin Wall there can be a conflict in Ukraine because of the “ever-eastward expansion of NATO and the European Union”.
He stated these actions had given Vladimir Putin a motive to inform the Russian folks “they’re coming for us again” and go to conflict.
Mr Farage was additionally challenged within the interview about his earlier feedback in regards to the Russian president, whom he stated he “admired” as a political operator – though he stated the conflict was “of course” Mr Putin’s “fault”.
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Following the interview, Mr Johnson, who authorised tons of of thousands and thousands of kilos’ value of economic help to Ukraine whereas he was prime minister, accused Mr Farage of “parroting Putin’s lies”.
Mr Johnson was responding to an article Mr Farage wrote in The Telegraph by which he caught to the feedback he made within the BBC interview.
Sharing the article on X, Mr Johnson wrote: “That is nauseating ahistorical drivel and extra Kremlin propaganda. No one provoked Putin. No one ‘poked the bear with a stick’.
“The folks of Ukraine voted overwhelmingly in 1991 to be a sovereign and impartial nation. They had been completely entitled to hunt each NATO and EU membership.
“There is only one person responsible for Russian aggression against Ukraine – both in 2014 and 2022 – and that is Putin. To try to spread the blame is morally repugnant and parroting Putin’s lies.”
Mr Farage informed supporters in Kent: “Well, perhaps it’s Boris Johnson that’s morally repugnant and not me, I don’t know. But can you see the sheer level of hypocrisy? Can you see the nonsense of all of this?”
He stated Mr Johnson would go down because the “worst prime minister of modern times”, who betrayed an “80 seat majority” and voters who supported Brexit.
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Mr Farage as soon as once more caught by his perception that the West had provoked the conflict in Ukraine, saying he had warned about such an consequence again in 2014.
“I was alone, I was the only person in 2014 who said there will be a war in Ukraine,” he stated. “I can’t take those words away and nor would I want to.”
“The fact I was more far-sighted than the rest of our political leaders? It’s not something that I’m going to apologise for.”
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Responding to criticism that he had given cowl to Mr Putin, Mr Farage stated he would “never, ever defend” the Russian president.
“This has been turned into ‘Farage makes outrageous statement’, ‘Farage defends Putin’ – well I’ve done none of those things,” he stated.
“I would never, ever defend Putin and I think his behaviour in Ukraine and elsewhere has been reprehensible.”
He added: “But if we’re going to think towards a peace at some time in the not too distant future, perhaps it might be helpful to understand what went wrong in the first place.”
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The Tories, whose election marketing campaign has been engulfed by a scandal over bets positioned on the date of the election, have sought to capitalise on Mr Farage’s feedback about Mr Putin and the invasion of Ukraine.
Rishi Sunak repeated this morning that Mr Farage’s declare “plays into Putin’s hands”.
“You all heard what Nigel Farage said about Ukraine,” he stated on the launch of the Scottish Conservatives’ manifesto launch in Edinburgh.
“That plays into Putin’s hands. That kind of appeasement is dangerous for Britain’s security, the security of our allies that rely on us and will only embolden Putin.”
