Nigel Farage has claimed that there 'is no such thing as the Conservative Party' after he split opinion amongst Tories.
In an interview with i's Chief News Correspondent David Parsley, the Reform UK leader also mocks David Cameron as 'Lord Snooty' and suggests he doesn't take issues such as immigration seriously.
In the wide-ranging interview, Farage also discusses how many seats he might win, his tax plans and his opinions on Donald Trump.
In an interview with i's Chief News Correspondent David Parsley, the Reform UK leader also mocks David Cameron as 'Lord Snooty' and suggests he doesn't take issues such as immigration seriously.
In the wide-ranging interview, Farage also discusses how many seats he might win, his tax plans and his opinions on Donald Trump.
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NewsTranscript
00:00And that shows you there is no Conservative Party.
00:03There isn't one. It doesn't exist.
00:04Can you tell me what it stands for? I've no idea.
00:14So going back to the number of seats,
00:18it was, everyone was saying maybe a handful, maybe three.
00:21Now we've got one.
00:22No, none. That's what they were saying.
00:23There was zero. Between zero and three, I was told,
00:25by virtually every pollster last week,
00:28including Survation, but that was before their disc came out.
00:31Now you're up to seven.
00:33That's one poll, as you say.
00:35But if you could put a figure on it,
00:39what do you reckon you could get? I wouldn't have a clue.
00:42I wouldn't have a clue. Do you think it still could be zero?
00:45I mean, you might as well play pin the tail on the donkey.
00:47I mean, I haven't got a clue.
00:49No, it is not going to be zero.
00:51That I'm very confident of. It's not going to be zero.
00:55You know, we're going to win seats.
00:58I don't know. I mean, this all depends on momentum.
01:02There is momentum out there. We can see it.
01:05We can feel it. But seven would be a good result, wouldn't it?
01:08Would it? I don't know.
01:11I'm not putting any projections on this at all.
01:14I'm travelling optimistically.
01:16Let's see where we end up. What I am confident of,
01:19what I am confident of is a very, very large number of votes.
01:23Potentially, possibly more than the Tories.
01:27I've said from the start, I think we have the potential to get more votes than them.
01:30And I said that a long time ago, and I still believe that to be true.
01:34Let's go back to the Tories briefly, if I can.
01:36You know, within the last 48 hours,
01:39we've had Lord Snooty, Debbie Cameron, coming out.
01:44You know, what's all the fuss about?
01:48Well, of course, we didn't deliver our promises on anything,
01:51but it was absolutely fine. There's no problem.
01:53And if you talk about immigration, well, this is dog whistling,
01:56really, rather beastly, and we don't discuss that sort of thing in Chippy Norton, you know.
02:00We've had that. We've had Lord Heseltine comparing me to Oswald Moseley.
02:05And then we have Suella, who, you know, is always saying let's get married on live television.
02:10And that shows you there is no Conservative Party. There isn't one.
02:14It doesn't exist.
02:15Well, Jacob Rees-Mogg said you should be in the Tory party.
02:18Well, get him to give Heseltine a ring and let's see how it goes.
02:22There is no Tory party.
02:25This is an historical political organisation that has the advantages that it's existed for a long time.
02:32It's got infrastructure. Can you tell me what it stands for? I've no idea.
02:36No deals, though. You've said that throughout.
02:38Oh, I've done.
02:39Richard said it from the very beginning. No deals. You did your deal in 2019.
02:44I've heard you talk about it. You sound hurt by what happened there.
02:47Oh, betrayed, reputationally damaged by them.
02:53Every day people say to me, why did you do it?
02:55Now, actually, I still think at the time it was the right thing to do.
02:59I think in the national interest it was the right thing to do.
03:01I think the quite appalling attempt to stop Brexit and return Brexit,
03:06that had been going on for three and a bit years,
03:09was one of the most shameful periods of our democratic history.
03:13And the thought of Corbyn and the Liberal Democrats,
03:16I still believe it was the right thing to do.
03:19But yes, I feel terribly let down.
03:20I heard you say they didn't even thank me. What did you mean by that?
03:25What horrible people they are. Just what awful human beings they are.
03:29They don't really believe in anything.
03:30This includes Boris.
03:32They're just awful people. For them, it's a game.
03:38I mean, most of them still think they're in the Oxford Union.
03:41It's all a game. It's all about reaching the top of the tree.
03:44It's being in politics for rank, title and position, rather than for what you can actually do.
03:49And I'm a purely conviction politician.
03:51I always have been. I gave up a good career to go into the European Parliament,
03:56a business and everything to go into the European Parliament.
03:58And now I've done it again. I've given up a good job.
04:02So I'm in it to change things, to do things that I believe in.
04:05And you can disagree with what I want to do.
04:07But that is the fair fight, the lines along which politics ought to be conducted.
04:12And these people, Brexit for them was just useful.
04:16Your own estimate is that the tax cuts and spending will cost 70 billion a year.
04:21Yes, because we've also got cuts to inheritance tax.
04:24You know, to put that threshold up, to put that up to a couple.
04:27Seven or whatever it is.
04:31Now, I asked Dan Needle, I've asked him to do every party's figures.
04:38He thinks, to be fair to you, he thinks your black hole is smaller than Labour's black hole.
04:45But he thinks your actual costs a year are 93 billion.
04:49And you're looking at a black hole of at least 15 billion to 30 billion.
04:56Good Lord, against the national debt of 2.7 trillion.
04:59Doesn't sound too bad, does it really?
05:01But isn't the point that every party is getting their figures?
05:05Nobody's ever got this right.
05:07No forecast's ever been right.
05:09That includes you, doesn't it?
05:10No one's ever got this right. It's impossible.
05:12I worked in financial markets for 20 years.
05:14I can't tell you what the price of gold is going to be next Thursday.
05:17All I will tell you is this.
05:19People will argue over the numbers tomorrow.
05:21They'll argue over whether we can make the efficiency savers.
05:23Of course they will.
05:24And that's right and proper that you and others should do that.
05:26What I can say to you is that we're putting forward something
05:30that I hope is going to provoke much more thought and debate over the coming years
05:35than anything we're getting from the Labour and Conservative parties.
05:39And we think there's some stuff in there that could make a very, very big positive difference.
05:43You referred to dog whistling.
05:45You do get accused of that.
05:47You have kind of said...
05:50You didn't say nice things about Hitler.
05:53Oh, don't be ridiculous.
05:55I'm sorry, that is be ridiculous.
05:58It's bloody ridiculous.
06:00You were asked a question about did you admire his ability to make speeches.
06:06Do you know what?
06:07I said he was a hypnotic and dangerous speaker.
06:09Yeah.
06:10Wasn't he?
06:11When we reach this level of infantilism, it's not even worth bothering with.
06:14No, but I do have to put these to you.
06:16And Putin, you said he did a great job in Syria.
06:19I said he was a very, very clever political operator, yes.
06:23Enoch Powell, you said, was your political hero.
06:26Do you think Enoch Powell was misunderstood?
06:29Yeah, I mean, Powell was...
06:32I mean, there are things about Powell that I disagree with very strongly.
06:35I think he was wrong about America.
06:39Although I understand why, post-1945, you might have felt that for a few years.
06:43I think on the European Union, he and Tony Benn were my...
06:47They have been my sort of political figures all through my career.
06:50Both of them in the 1975 referendum making arguments that, interestingly,
06:56were almost the same ones.
06:58But on the dog-whistling stuff, sometimes you go so far, then you row back.
07:02That's the accusation.
07:04But you know when you've gone so far,
07:06the people you wanted to hear it in a certain way have heard it in that way.
07:09All I will tell you is I provoke debate. I've been doing it for years.
07:12Is that the same as being divisive?
07:15Well, we can all just be a mush in the middle and just go on declining, if you like.
07:19I mean, I am... Look, if I'm anything, I'm a radical.
07:23I'm a radical in the old-fashioned sense of what the word radical is.
07:26You know, I happen to think that you need fundamental change at times to make things better.
07:31And Thatcher was an economic radical, and Blair was a social radical.
07:36You know, these people... Figures do come along occasionally that want to change things.
07:40And it's only those people that can get things done.
07:42That's right.
07:43That's right.
07:44So Trump...
07:45Yeah.
07:46Various... 34 convictions.
07:48Yeah.
07:49More to come, possibly.
07:50Accused of starting a riot at the Capitol, but you'll still support him?
07:54Yeah, I want to try and avoid a third world war.
07:56I think he's our best chance of avoiding a third world war.
07:58I think we are almost at war with Russia now.
08:02China may not be very far away.
08:04I think it's the most alarming time in terms of the global situation at any point in my lifetime.
08:09I think lots of people will agree, but on all sides of politics,
08:12is he the best chance of avoiding a third world war because he's unpredictable?
08:17I think there are three reasons.
08:19One is that peace comes through strength, not weakness.
08:21And Biden projects weakness, and we saw that in Kabul a couple of years, three years ago.
08:28Number two, I mean, Putin wouldn't have dared.
08:33Wouldn't have dared go into Ukraine because there is that element that says, wow, you know, what will he actually do?
08:39And number three, because his instinct, his instinct is to be a peacemaker.
08:43You know, he's not part of that neocon group.
08:46He's not part of that.
08:48Well, even Eisenhower identified it back in the 50s, didn't he?
08:50The military industrial complex.
08:51He's actually a lot further to the left on some things than you are.
08:56Yeah, you're probably right.
08:57But I think the Abraham Accords, I think walking over the line into North Korea,
09:01these are the things that Trump did on the world stage as president.
09:06And I think, honestly, I mean, if any other American president had put together the Abraham Accords,
09:12I mean, there'd be statues of them going up all over the place.