Nigel Farage has said the prime minister’s meeting with European leaders on Monday night shows he is a “rejoiner at heart”.
Speaking on Monday, Keir Starmer reiterated that the UK rejoining the EU is “not going to happen” but that a “better, closer relationship” on trade and security could be achieved as he arrived for dinner with leaders in Brussels.
Farage, the leader of Reform UK, said the meeting was “completely unnecessary” and that moves to deepen industrial collaboration were “alarming”.
Speaking to Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “That was an act of humiliation. It was completely unnecessary, but Starmer went along with it.
“I think the most alarming thing that came out of last night was the agreement to deepen industrial collaboration. Does that mean we’re joining part of an EU industrial policy? Does it mean, in terms of defence, we’re joining their procurement programmes?
“There are still a lot of unanswered questions, but I didn’t like the language at all, and the very fact that he was there discussing such things shows you that our prime minister is a rejoiner at heart.”
Farage nonetheless insisted that the UK’s existing trade deal with the EU, negotiated under Boris Johnson as prime minister, “was not a very good one”.
“We can improve on that”, the arch-Brexiteer told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Asked what concessions he would offer the EU in exchange for a more favourable relationship, Farage said: “We can improve the deal by saying to them, ‘look, we can make this easier for both of us, we can go back through’, we are up for a renegotiation anyway.
“My fear is we tie ourselves to EU law, we start to accept single market regulations and the many implications from this government, that is what they intend to do.”
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Nigel Farage is vulnerable
The comments came after Reform UK topped a YouGov voting intention poll for the first time.
The poll showed that if a general election were held tomorrow 25 per cent of British voters would choose Reform, 24 per cent would pick Labour, and 21 per cent would vote for the Conservatives.
The survey of 2,465 people over February 2 to 3 gave Reform its joint-highest score to date, up from 23 per cent in its previous poll on 26-27 of January.
Reform’s narrow lead over Labour in the poll – which surveyed 2,465 people over 2 February to 3 February – is within the margin of error, YouGov said.
Asked whether he trusted the judgement of Elon Musk after the tech billionaire said he was not fit to lead Reform, Farage said: “Elon is Elon, he says a lot of things.
“He wanted me to go along a line I didn’t want to go down. I don’t get bullied by anybody. I stand up for the principles that I believe in. Since then we have had very cordial relations.”
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Elon Musk has an awful lot of opinions, some of which I agree with and some of which I don’t.”
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here.
Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for all the latest news and analysis.
Source: Politics
