Farage says Simon Dudley has been sacked as Reform UK’s housing spokesperson over ‘deeply inappropriate’ Grenfell comment
Farage and Jenrick are now taking questions.
Q: [From Christopher Hope from GB News] What is your reaction to the comments from Simon Dudley, your housing spokesperson. Will you sack him, as Keir Starmer is calling for? [See 8.51am and 9.12am.]
Farage says “that’s already happened”.
Dudley is no longer a party spokesperson, he says.
In response to a follow-up question, Farage says Dudley’s comments were “deeply inappropriate” and “frankly rather shocking to many people”.
Asked if he sacked him himself, Farage says Dudley worked under Richard Tice, the deputy leader and business spokesperson, and Tice dealt with it.
Farage cites this as an example of how the party is not a one-man band.
Key events
Farage says he doesn’t think Trump will take UK out of Nato
Farage says he does not think Donald Trump will take the US out of Nato. He says he has had many conversations with Trump about this. He says Trump has been expressing a frustration about Nato, but this is one that other US presidents have also shared. He goes on:
If Trump was to leave Nato, that would take America into an isolationist position.
Now, there are some in the Republican party who do take that view, absolutely.
But I don’t for a minute believe Trump too be one of them.
Trump wants the rest of Nato to act in concert with him.
Q: Do you agree with Trump when he says the UK does not have a navy?
Farage says his views on what Trump said are irrelevant. You could say the navy should not have to take three weeks to get a boat to Cyprus. But he says his views are irrelevant because the first sea lord thinks the navy is not ready for war.
Farage is referring to an interview highlighted by the Telegraph yesterday. In the interview Gen Sir Gwyn Jenkins said:
Are we as ready as we should be? I don’t think we are. We have work to do and I am completely dedicated to the mission.
Q: Do you agree with that Simon Dudley said about safety regulations being excessive?
Farage says he is not qualified to talk about safety regulations.
He says there are two issues here.
On Grenfell, he says Dudley said something that was “rather insulting to a very large number of people”.
On regulation, he says “in general terms we tend to respond to tragedy by putting masses of regulation in place, which doesn’t necessarily stop those tragedies from ever happening again”.
Q: Would you make winter fuel payments universal again?
Jenrick says Rachel Reeves performed a U-turn on winter fuel payments. That is “the right way for it to remain”, he says.
(In her U-turn, Reeves expanded eligibility, but she did not make winter fuel payments universal.)
Q: Would you repeal some of what Keir Starmer is agreeing with the EU?
Jenrick says Starmer is “trying to use the Iran crisis … as a back door to pursue his longstanding ambition to get back into the single market, or as close to it as possible”.
He says there are some Starmer ideas he “vehemently” disagrees with, such as an open-ended youth mobility scheme.
Q: Robert Jenrick seemed suprised when you made the announcement about Simon Dudley. Shouldn’t you have told your party first?
No, says Farage. He says the decision was only taken about an hour ago.
He says it was for Richard Tice to make that announcement.
(But, actually, it was Farage who made the announcement.)
He says Dudley “clearly acted yesterday in a pretty hurtful, insulting way to an awful lot of people”.
Q: What would you have done about the Clapham riots?
Farage says the UK has decriminalised shoplifting. This is the consequence.
He says people are blaming social media platforms. But if you shut down one, another pops up.
He says we should blame those involved.
And he claims this vindicates his claim about London being lawless.
He says all low-level crime must be prosecuted. It worked in New York when Rudy Giuliani was mayor.
He says “societal breakdown” was another reason why he chose to come back to frontline politics.
Farage says the government is not telling the truth when it says that, if the UK allowed more oil and gas drilling, that would not affect the global price paid.
He says the UK buys LNG from the US. It is produced in the US, liquefied and then sent to the UK. The UK pays more than the spot price because it has to be transported. He says having domestic production would make it cheaper.
He says he returned to frontline politics partly because he thought the main parties had got their energy policy all wrong.
And he dismisses Kemi Badenoch as “copycat Kemi” because the Tories have followed Reform UK on energy policy. Earlier this week she claimed to be visiting an oil rig. But it wasn’t an oil rig. It was as decomissioning rig, he says.
Q: [From ITV’s Harry Horton] Shouldn’t you be helping younger people, not older people?
Jenrick says younger people want their parents and grandparents to have a decent retirement.
And he claims the party would help younger people too.
Q: Is it fair that Europe has to clear up the mess caused by Donald Trump and his Iran war?
Farage claims that Keir Starmer made a “catastrophic error” not allowing Trump to use British bases like Diego Garcia at the start of the war. He then had to change his mind, Farage says, after he had upset Trump.
This did not stop Cyprus being attacked, he says.
But he says Starmer may have been right to rule out British military involvement. He says Britain does not have the resources to do this.
Farage says, in taking on defined benefit pension schemes in the public sector, Reform UK is making a brave choice.
Jenrick backs this up. He says public sector pensions, and welfare spending, are two of the biggest problems for the public finances.
He says other parties have not been willing to take on this challenge.
