"Can we trust someone who is so keen to parrot the Kremlin line…?"
Labour MP Pat McFadden has taken aim at Nigel Farage for “parroting Kremlin lines”, after the Reform leader said he would vote against any government plans to deploy British soldiers in Ukraine.
Speaking on LBC this morning, McFadden described the government’s plans to deploy troops if a peace deal is agreed as “a really important statement of intent”.
The cabinet minister then laid into Farage, saying: “That’s why it’s so concerning to me to see some politicians, like Mr Farage, for example, immediately come out, parrot the Kremlin line and say he wouldn’t support this.”
He added: “Can we trust someone who is so keen to parrot the Kremlin line with the future security of the United Kingdom? I certainly don’t think so.”
McFadden said Farage’s opposition to deploying British troops in Ukraine would give voters “pause for thought”.
Farage missed Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday to appear on Times Radio, where he said that he would vote against any proposal to deploy troops to Ukraine.
“It would be a very interesting vote. I would vote against,” said Farage.
He added: “We neither have the manpower nor the equipment to go into an operation that clearly has no ending timeline.”
Farage said he might back deploying troops if at least eight other countries were able to share the burden, but added: “As it is, it will be us and the French completely exposed for an unlimited period of time.”
The Reform leader has previously repeated “Putin talking points”, stating that the West and expansionism by “the EU Empire” had provoked Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
In November, Nathan Gill, the former UKIP MEP and leader of Reform in Wales, was sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison for accepting bribes in exchange for making pro-Russia speeches in the European Parliament in 2018 and 2019.
Gill was a close ally of Farage through the Brexit years.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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