An enemy of Ukraine and democracy

Published by The i paper (24th June, 2024)

Nigel Farage has built a brand that has won him fame and fortune based on two key pillars – that he is a fearless defender of democracy and a patriot who is fighting for freedom from failed political elites. Since the start of his political career, he has been on a mission based on the power of voting to deliver drastic change – and his populist campaigning and jocular style sadly made him a figure of historic note.

Yet, behind all the bonhomie and beer-quaffing, he is now exposed as a man who has sided with an enemy of our nation, promoting the propaganda of a dictator who is crushing freedom in his own land and waging war on democracy on our continent. Farage denies this, of course, as he sees suddenly how praise for a bloodstained war criminal in the Kremlin might jeopardise his efforts to dominate the shattered right after our looming election.

Following the furore over last week’s BBC interview – in which he repeated his false claim that the European Union and Nato provoked Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and reiterated his admiration for Vladimir Putin “as a political operator” despite personal distaste for the despot – he has hastily been trying to limit the damage. The Reform UK party boss insists in his Daily Telegraph column he is not a Putin “apologist or supporter” and condemns the invasion of Ukraine in his strongest terms yet as “immoral, outrageous and indefensible”.

The latter point is right. Yet it is unspeakable that out of all the people on the planet Farage might have picked to pay homage for their political skills, he chose Putin. The Russian leader is a former KGB agent who won the presidency on a wave of popularity after mysterious apartment block bombings – which some later blamed on his security agents – that killed at least 300 of his people and led to savage war in Chechnya.

Putin has crushed freedom in Russia, looted the country, stole land from neighbouring nations, murdered political foes and people in Britain, unleashed disinformation to destabilise the West and weaponised migration into Europe. He clings to power through fear while sowing discord in democracies – yet Farage admires his acumen.

The self-styled British freedom fighter originally made this admission in March 2014 – days after Putin finished the first annexation of sovereign territory in Europe since the Second World War. Since then, Farage and his various political forces have displayed a strange predilection for assisting Putin’s cause. Farage has blamed the West for “poking the Russian bear” through expanding the EU and Nato.

As leader of Ukip in 2015, his party voted against measures to condemn Russian human rights abuses. He has questioned use of sanctions against Russian oligarchs after the full-scale invasion. His political forces fight also against rapid energy transition from fossil fuels, coincidentally the main revenue stream for Moscow’s vile regime.

Farage appeared frequently on Russia Today – even after the theft of Crimea – with the Reform party leader admitting this earned him what he called “small appearance fees” of “well under £5,000” on at least two occasions.

So perhaps it is not surprising to discover that a Reform rally was hosted by a hotel owner who allegedly professed his love for Putin, nor that some of their party candidates make idiotic statements such as “Putin puts his people first” when the Kremlin mafia has looted billions from the state and half a million Russians have been slaughtered or injured in the battlefields of Ukraine.

As usual, Farage poses as a plain speaker who dares tell the truth. Yet endless talk of “betrayal” by the political establishment rings hollow from this man who led the Putin-pleasing Brexit revolt, then shrugged off responsibility for the inevitable fiasco inflicted on our country before returning at the helm of another rebel force to bemoan the corroded state of our nation. It is so much easier to claim to represent “decent patriotic Brits” with remorseless attacks on Westminster when you have no hope of ending up in power wrestling with massive challenges and can offer voters only a risible manifesto.

He argues that he has been consistently right and honest about Russia’s war. Yet claims of Western culpability for the sickening actions of a brutal dictator seeking to destroy a democracy on his doorstep are utterly wrong – as I witnessed in Kyiv, Simferopol and Donetsk during those turbulent days at the start of this conflict in 2014. People waved EU flags, Nigel, because they sought to share our freedoms rather than reversion to Russian subjugation. It is breathtakingly hypocritical for a man who based his Brexit campaign on the idea of sovereignty to be so dismissive of the rights of citizens in countries such as the Baltic States and Ukraine to shape their own future by joining the EU and seeking the security of Nato’s defensive alliance.

For too long, we brushed aside all those voices in Eastern Europe who warned us of Russia’s determination to recreate its collapsed Soviet empire and rebuild its sphere of influence. Then we were absurdly complacent after 2014 when Moscow began its efforts to winkle open divisions in the West through conspiracy theories, disinformation and support for fringe populist forces.

Now even the Reform leader admits that his pin-up Putin has “absolute determination that Ukraine should not be allowed to exist as an independent sovereign state”. Yet still Farage gives succour to a dictator engaged in an epochal conflict against our values while he insults the millions of Ukrainians who have fought so valiantly and at such immense cost for a decade for the ideals of democracy, freedom and sovereignty he claims to espouse.

Categorised in: Europe, home page, Politics, Russia, Ukraine