Nigel Farage’s biggest problem? Donald Trump
By day 31 of the war in the Middle East, Nigel Farage had become somewhat less vocal about the closeness of his relationship with Donald Trump.“Trying to read what’s really in the minds of people in the White House right at the moment is a mug’s game,” said the MP, as he unveiled his party’s latest “pledge” to cut the cost of living on Tuesday.Perched on a stool against the backdrop of departing flights, Farage had come to Heathrow airport to promote a plan to scrap taxes on short-haul journeys.Yet when the questions inevitably came about the conflict’s potentially catastrophic impact on Britain’s economy, the Reform leader was forced to grapple with what has suddenly become the primary barrier to people voting for his party: Donald Trump.The US president is now underwater in terms of his favourability even with Reform voters, who were previously the only set of UK party supporters who saw him positively, according to polling by More in Common.
Reform’s Trump problem is particularly stark among British women, with 25% of those polled last week listing “Farage’s support for Trump” as the primary reason they would not vote for his party,Among men and women it was 23%, ahead of a range of other reasons including the party being seen as too rightwing, racism on the part of some candidates, its lack of government experience or perceptions that they only represent the rich,“From focus groups, the idea of something like [the] Minnesota [immigration raids] happening here but also the general sense of chaos he might bring in the UK is kryptonite to would-be Reform voters, particularly women and those in Reform’s ‘second 15%’, [who] they need to get close to forming a government,” said Luke Tryl, the executive director of More in Common,“They can’t understand why Farage associates with Trump, and it’s the thing that makes them more nervous about ‘rolling the dice’,”With Reform voters as vulnerable as any other – more so, in some cases – to the looming economic storm, the daily uncertainty of the war is now also becoming a problem for the party.
Even though its voters were found by YouGov to be more positive than others towards the US strikes, their expectations still tend to be negative when it comes to everything from geopolitical stability to household finances.It is a far cry from the days after the 2016 US presidential election, when the president-elect first started to moot the then Ukip leader as a man who would do a “great job” as Britain’s ambassador to the US.In the years since, Farage would routinely emphasise his ties to Trump, boasting in January last year that he had the incoming White House administration on speed dial.Asked by the Guardian on Tuesday if he was concerned that his relationship with Trump was beginning to damage him with Reform’s base, Farage responded: “‘I’m not going to lie about it, am I? I’m not going to pretend I don’t know him.I do.
“I think what he has done on the border [with Mexico] is admirable,” added Farage, who listed other supposed Trump achievements, including on the economy “certainly in the first term”, and on energy policy.“So there are things he’s done that I agree with hugely.There are other things he has done that I don’t agree with, and the American and the British public can judge that.But, you know, he is not dictating policy to me.I’m dictating policy to me.
”Earlier, the Reform leader was again less certain about Trump when asked if the president should end the war without securing the strait of Hormuz.He also appeared less assured about his own earlier belief that regime change in Iran was about to be realised, expressed at a previous Reform event in the immediate aftermath of US and Israeli strikes.“I don’t think we should take literally everything right now that Donald Trump says,” Farage said on Tuesday.“But the last thing he’s going to do, or the last thing his colleagues in the White House do, is to give the Iranians any idea of what their true intentions are and frankly, I don’t know..
.Was it to remove nuclear capability? Was it aimed at regime change? I don’t think any of us quite know the absolute truth about that.”Whatever impact the Trump-Farage relationship has in the months and years ahead, it is a relationship that appears to be changing.Farage faced mockery at the end of the first week of the war after he announced that he was flying to Mar-a-Lago to meet Trump, only to fail to secure a meeting.
Karl Turner has Labour whip suspended after criticism of Starmer and No 10
The MP Karl Turner has lost the Labour whip after making a series of interventions criticising Keir Starmer and No 10, especially on changes to jury trials.A Labour source said Turner had been informed by the chief whip, Jonathan Reynolds, that he had had the whip suspended because of his conduct. Turner denied he had been informed by the whips and said he had learned about his suspension from journalists.The decision is understood to have been prompted in part by an interview given by Turner, the MP for Hull East, to Jody McIntyre, a campaigner who stood at the 2024 elections against Labour’s Jess Phillips.Turner wrote on X: “I am being told that I have had the whip suspended but I have not had any notification from the whips about this
Opaque party funding affects all of British politics | Letters
While I agree with much of Polly Toynbee’s opinion piece (How will we know Labour is really cleaning up party funding? When Reform and the Tories fight like hell to stop it, 26 March), I was left a little concerned about the tone, which seemingly presented this as uniquely a Tory/Reform UK matter.Dirty money (or just opaque funding) in British politics is not really such a sectarian issue. The proposals would appear to do nothing to prevent a party from accepting, for example, £4m from a hedge fund in the run-up to an election, and not declaring it until afterwards (Labour/Quadrature). Nor would they prevent a party engaging a thinktank that had itself accepted £200m from a rightwing American tech oligarch, bringing them into government, and installing staff in the heart of the policymaking process (Labour/Tony Blair Institute/Larry Ellison of Oracle).But it was heartening to see Toynbee begin to address the way that disparities in funding distort the democratic process
Nigel Farage to snub US conservative conference brought to UK by Liz Truss
Nigel Farage will snub a major conference of US conservatives that is being brought to the UK by Liz Truss.The short-lived former prime minister, who was accused of crashing the economy, was chosen by the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to lead a version of the event in the UK in July.She announced this on stage in Texas on Monday while next to Matt Schlapp, commentator and chair of the event, which in the US has hosted major figures including Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Tulsi Gabbard and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.However, mainstream conservative figures in the UK seem wary to be associated with the Truss-led event.“We will be steering well clear of it,” a Reform UK source said, dashing any hopes that Farage would attend
Zack Polanski meets unions in attempt to get them to switch party funding to Greens
Zack Polanski has kicked off a charm offensive designed to convince trade unions to stop funding Labour and throw their weight behind the Green party, as he delivered the first in a series of speeches to union conferences.The Green leader has had “good conversations” with 10 trade unions, including some affiliated to Labour, according to party sources, and is due to address the University and College Union and the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, not affiliated with Labour, in the coming months.The UK’s largest unions – Unite and Unison – were among those that denied negotiating with Polanski and said they remained affiliated to the Labour party. However, Unite is holding internal discussions about its future relationship with Labour before a special conference in 2027 at which it could potentially decide to disaffiliate.While Green party sources admitted that discussions Polanski had held with individual unions varied in formality, some union insiders were adamant that supporting the Greens would be a no-go area, and that such discussions were “much ado about nothing”
Kemi the attention seeker somehow always makes two plus two equal five | John Crace
Losing sleep over the war in Iran? Worried sick about the cost of living? Can’t pay your energy bills? Then relax. Because Kemi Badenoch has a displacement activity for you.It’s becoming increasingly easy to understand the Conservative leader by viewing her as a hyperactive five-year-old at the back of the class who is constantly disruptive. Who can’t get through a lesson without some kind of attention-seeking behaviour. Who has a constant desire to be indulged even though her first reactions are invariably wrong
Zack Polanski tells NEU teachers’ union that Greens would abolish ‘toxic’ Ofsted – as it happened
The Green party would abolish Ofsted because they view it as a “failed institution”, Zack Polanski, its leader, has told a teaching union conference.Polanski also said that the Greens were opposed to the academisation of schools and that they believe that Labour is not fixing the “failings” in the system by the Tories, but embedding them.In a speech to the National Education Union’s annual conference, Polanski said:double quotation markOfsted is a toxic, failed institution which is harming teachers and children – and it’s time to end it.Talking about school structures more generally, he said:double quotation markThis government’s reforms are simply tinkering around the edges.We need to end the Ofsted era entirely and move towards a genuinely collaborative model
BP is operating in a world of ‘significant complexity’, new boss tells staff
UK food inflation ‘could hit 9% this year’ as Iran war drives up energy prices
The Voorhees law of traffic: when overtaken slow cars seem to always catch up at a red light
Silicon Valley city to give residents doorbells equipped with cameras
ECB accused of allowing non-disabled players to take place of disabled cricketers in top domestic league
From the Pocket: Voss has had every chance to succeed but Carlton backed the wrong coach