Farage says he was ‘shocked’ by Trump’s comment about ending Iranian civilisation, which went ‘way too far’
Even Nigel Farage now believes that Donald Trump has gone too far. In the past the Reform UK leader has been one of the president’s biggest supporters in the UK. More recently he has started to stress that he does not agree with the president on everything. But at his press conference this morning he was still broadly supportive, arguing that the UK could not defend itself militarily without the US and saying that, if he were PM, he would allow Trump to use British bases to attack Iranian infrastructure – provided Trump could assure him he had a plan for the end game. (See 2.55pm.)
But Trump’s latest Truth Social post has pushed Farage over the edge.
During a post-press conference walkabout in Bedworth, a Press Association reporter told Farage what Trump had said in his post and asked for a response. Farage said:
I am quite shocked just to hear that. That is over the top in every single way.
Yes of course he wants to threaten – to get them to the negotiating table. But those words are … they’re way too far.
Asked if the post was befitting of someone holding the office of the US president, Farage answered:
He’s an upset, angry American president.
He’s wholly unconventional but I would remind you of what Churchill said about the bombing of Germany during the war. Some quite extraordinary things were said there as well.
Key events
Graduates on lower salaries won’t benefit from today’s student loans interest rate cap, Institute for Fiscal Studies says
Graduates on lower salaries won’t benefit from the cap on the interest paid on student loans announced by the government today (see 11.16am), the Institute for Fiscal Studies says.
In a comment on the announcement, Kate Ogden, a senior research economist at the IFS, said:
In anticipation of a possible spike in inflation as a result of events in the Middle East, the government has today announced that interest rates on student loans issued to English students will be capped at 6% next academic year.
If the March 2026 figure for RPI inflation comes in at more than 3% – as seems likely – this cap will reduce the interest rate applied to outstanding plan 2 student loans held by higher-earning graduates who are subject to an interest rate of up to RPI plus 3%. It will only reduce actual loan repayments in the long run from the roughly third of graduates that can expect to repay their plan 2 loans in full.
If, for example, March RPI came in at 4%, the cap might benefit the highest-earning graduates by an average of around £500 over their lifetime.
It will do nothing for graduates who are lower-earning currently who will still see their interest rate set at RPI and therefore likely below the new cap.
As my colleague Peter Walker points out on Bluesky, we’re now in the odd position where Nigel Farage is more willing to condemn Donald Trump (see 4.24pm) than anyone from the Labour government has been.
Three hours after Donald Trump’s threat that “a whole civilisation will die tonight” in Iran, and Nigel Farage has been more openly critical of this than Downing Street or anyone else in the UK government.
Farage says he was ‘shocked’ by Trump’s comment about ending Iranian civilisation, which went ‘way too far’
Even Nigel Farage now believes that Donald Trump has gone too far. In the past the Reform UK leader has been one of the president’s biggest supporters in the UK. More recently he has started to stress that he does not agree with the president on everything. But at his press conference this morning he was still broadly supportive, arguing that the UK could not defend itself militarily without the US and saying that, if he were PM, he would allow Trump to use British bases to attack Iranian infrastructure – provided Trump could assure him he had a plan for the end game. (See 2.55pm.)
But Trump’s latest Truth Social post has pushed Farage over the edge.
During a post-press conference walkabout in Bedworth, a Press Association reporter told Farage what Trump had said in his post and asked for a response. Farage said:
I am quite shocked just to hear that. That is over the top in every single way.
Yes of course he wants to threaten – to get them to the negotiating table. But those words are … they’re way too far.
Asked if the post was befitting of someone holding the office of the US president, Farage answered:
He’s an upset, angry American president.
He’s wholly unconventional but I would remind you of what Churchill said about the bombing of Germany during the war. Some quite extraordinary things were said there as well.
Starmer condemned by Greens for refusing to speak out against Trump’s threat to wipe out Iranian civilisation
Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, has posted this on social media about Keir Starmer’s decision to tweet about Kanye West (see 3.16pm) – but not about Donald Trump threatening to wipe out an entire civilisation (see 2.22pm).
We’re on the verge of a genocidal, nuclear war that our supposed “ally” has said he’s ready to unleash.
Would it be too much to ask for the Prime Minister to have something to say about it? Or do?
Suspend US bases now.
Russell Findlay claims Reform UK can’t be trusted to reject independence as he launches Scottish Tories’ manifesto
Severin Carrell
Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.
The Scottish Tory leader, Russell Findlay, is seeking to claw back ground lost to Reform UK by accusing the party of being soft on independence, pointing to Reform’s conditional opposition to a second referendum.
“Reform can’t be trusted on independence; they can’t be trusted on anything,” Findlay told the Scottish Conservative’s manifesto launch in Edinburgh. They were “unionists in name only”.
The manifesto pledged to cut Scottish income taxes to match the UK’s lower rates; put more police on the beat; cut early release from prison; redouble North Sea oil and gas drilling and fix GP waiting lists and pot holes. He added the Scottish Tories would offer all pensioners a £500 tax rebate, to cope with the cost of living.
He pointed to Malcolm Offord, the former Tory peer and minister who is now Reform’s Scottish leader, saying a future referendum could be held and that he could work with “rational” nationalists on boosting the economy, and accepting ex-Scottish National party activists as Holyrood candidates.
Opinion polls consistently show the Scottish Tories face humiliation in the 7 May election, dropping from Holyrood’s second largest party at the last election to fourth or fifth, trailing Reform and Labour (vying for second place) by four to 11 points on the constituency vote, and level pegging with the Liberal Democrats.
The Tories are, however, doing better on the regional lists and Findlay is urging Tory voters to use their peach, regional vote, ballot papers to back his party. Focusing heavily on the union has historically been one of the Scottish Tories’ strongest cards, but the collapse in their support is likely too great to bridge, with only 30 days to go before the election.
Findlay said:
Reform can’t be trusted on the union. It can’t be trusted full stop. Their flimsy manifesto fell apart in less than 24 hours. The IFS think tank described key pledges as a mirage, based on fantasy figures. Their candidates have been dropping like flies. They’ve had a chaotic start. So how can they be trusted to take on the SNP if they can’t even sort their own candidate vetting process?
We are the only party that’s serious about cutting taxes and defending the union. We know where we stand. It’s in our bones and it’s in the manifesto. [We] will oppose any attempt to hold another independence referendum crystal clear. And I’m going to repeat that every day until May 7.
A reader asks:
Will there be coverage at 1am when the deadline (appropriately named) expires? For those of us finding it hard to sleep.
The Guardian’s Middle East crisis live blog has been running more or less around the clock since the Iran war started. When we’re asleep in the UK, colleagues are writing it from the US or from Australia.
Farage claims UK has given £6.6bn to countries that view Britons as ‘the most awful people’ as he defends slavery reparations policy
Alexandra Topping
Alexandra Topping is a Guardian political correspondent.
At his press conference earlier, Nigel Farage defended his party’s new proposal to refuse visas for people wanting to visit the UK from countries seeking slavery reparations from the UK. (See 9.56am.)
Asked if Reform UK would backdate this policy, Farage said that it would not apply to people already issued with a visa. But it was “about time we stood up and said enough”, he added.
And asked about the cost of the policy, and its impact on areas of the economy like the care sector, Farage said Reform’s costings suggested that the UK had already “given” £6.6bn to “countries that say we’re the most awful people that have ever lived on the face of the planet”.
He went on:
We’ve also opened our doors to 3.8 million of their citizens, some of whom, of course, do work in the care sector, many of whom live on benefits and many of whom yesterday, if they’ve got several children, will have seen their family income go up massively as a result of the two-child cap going, and I think it’s about time we stopped.
Farage said there “are parts of our past we wouldn’t be proud of, and there are parts of our past we’ve got every right to be immensely proud of”, including spending “four decades on the high seas, at the loss of thousands of sailors and vast amounts of money, driving slavery off the world’s oceans”.
He added:
We’re saying it happens as soon as there is a Reform government … I think you’ll find the other countries would fall into line very, very quickly.
Starmer says Kanye West should never have been invited to perform at Wireless festival
Keir Starmer has posted this on social media about Kanye West.
Kanye West should never have been invited to headline Wireless.
This government stands firmly with the Jewish community, and we will not stop in our fight to confront and defeat the poison of antisemitism.
We will always take the action necessary to protect the public and uphold our values.
Farage says he would let Trump use UK bases to attack civilian infrastructure in Iran if president could explain end game
Alexandra Topping
Alexandra Topping is a Guardian political correspondent.
At the Reform UK press conference today (which, at around half an hour, was considerably shorter than some epic press conferences of late), Nigel Farage was pressed on Iran and whether he would give America permission to use British airbases for attacks on civilian infrastructure in Iran that Donald Trump has threatened.
Farage indicated that he would allow Donald Trump to use British bases for the attacks, if the US president gave assurances about the “end game” of the attacks.
Asked specifically if he would let America use British bases for attacks on civilian infrastructure in Iran, Farage said:
If I was the British prime minister, I’d say to Trump, what is the aim? What is the objective? What is the end game? What is the way out? Provided that I received satisfactory answers to those questions, I would say the continued use of our bases was the right thing to do.
Farage’s response was interesting, not least because Keir Starmer and Labour have repeatedly tried to draw a line between the prime minister’s response to Trump’s request for military help, and what they have styled as Conservative and Reform support for the war in Iran. At the outset of the war Farage and Kemi Badenoch were quick to say Starmer was not doing enough to support the US and Israel. Farage said when the conflict began: “We should do all we can to support the operation.” He and Badenoch have since softened that stance, with Badenoch later saying: “I said that we support their actions. I never said we should join.” Farage has since stated that Britain should not actively join Trump’s war saying the military could not “offer anything of value” to America or Israel.
What’s behind the U-turns? Trump is unpopular with UK voters, even ones who support Reform. As Ben Quinn pointed out in this analysis:
The US president is now underwater in terms of his favourability even with Reform voters, who were previously the only set of UK party supporters who saw him positively, according to polling by More in Common.
Reform’s Trump problem is particularly stark among British women, with 25% of those polled last week listing “Farage’s support for Trump” as the primary reason they would not vote for his party.
Among men and women it was 23%, ahead of a range of other reasons including the party being seen as too rightwing, racism on the part of some candidates, its lack of government experience or perceptions that they only represent the rich.
During his press conference on Tuesday, Farage reiterated his previously stated remarks that the UK was dependent on the US for its national security, and tried to focus his answer on the US, rather than its president. Asked about the UK’s defence stance, he said:
What defence? It took us three weeks and one day to send a single naval vessel to defend British sovereign territory in Cyprus.
I would say our defence is in tatters. What has happened in the last few weeks should serve as a massive wake-up call. And I think the situation is absolutely dire as far as America is concerned.
We’ve refused permission to use the bases [and] an RAF base was attacked anyway. Then the prime minister U-turned and said the Americans could use the bases, but for defensive purposes, whatever that, in a situation of war, may mean.
I have a major, major worry that the relationship with America, is looking very broken. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s a Biden in the White House, whether it’s a Trump in the White House. You know, we’ve got to face a fact […] that without America, we are virtually defenceless.
Farage concluded:
I think for us to finish up breaking the alliance with America, I would put this country in very grave peril. And I certainly do not believe that a European defense force or a European army would be an answer in any way at all.
Zack Polanski says UK must ‘immediately’ withdraw all military support it’s giving to US given Trump’s latest threats
Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, is also calling for the government to urgently withdraw the military support it is giving the US.
In a message on social media Polanski, like Ed Davey (see 2.22pm), also indicated that he had read President Trump’s latest Truth Social message with horror. Polanski said the UK must stop American planes bombing Iran from British bases entirely.
The UK must immediately and unequivocally suspend support for the US military.
The Government have tried to appease him, then they tried to say they’re standing up to him.
Words aren’t enough – it’s time for action.
