The party plans to do more to call out the Reform UK leader, with internal polling showing 57% of all voters saying Mr Farage’s sympathy for Putin is a risk to national security
Labour is set to ramp up its attacks on Nigel Farage in wake of the Nathan Gill scandal.
Reform’s leader in Wales until 2021, Mr Gill admitted eight counts of bribery after making statements in favour of Russia. In his initial statement following Mr Gill’s conviction, Mr Farage took a swipe at Ukraine claiming it is “a country beset by corruption”, while not once criticising Russia.
This has seen the party make a humiliating mockup of Mr Farage and Putin as Russian dolls, suggesting Reform’s energy plan would see the UK forced to rely on the Kremlin. The art, which will be one of many visual attacks on the Reform UK leader, includes the caption: “What’s really inside Reform’s energy plan?”.
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Now the party plans to do more to link the Reform UK leader to Vladimir Putin, with internal polling showing 57% of all voters and 66% of voters they need to win agree that it is fair to say Mr Farage’s sympathy for Putin is a risk to national security. Labour sources believe that figure will rise as voters learn more from the digital campaign.
Criticism is expected to include accusations Mr Farage parrots Kremlin talking points, that he has previously blamed the Russian invasion on Nato, and that even this week the former banker suggested the West “provoked this war”.
He previously blamed the Russian invasion of Ukraine on NATO, saying: “I warned in 2014 that EU and NATO expansion would lead to war”.
Mr Farage has also said: “A consequence of EU and NATO expansion, which came to a head in 2014. It made no sense to poke the Russian bear with a stick”.
Part of this attack includes the Energy and Net-zero Secretary’s announcement of a green energy jobs bonanza that will see 400,000 extra roles in the green economy by 2030.
Unveiling the plans, Mr Miliband also laid down the gauntlet to Nigel Farage and warned his resistance to net zero policies left thousands of jobs at risk.
Labor believes Reform’s policy of scrapping net zero projects and moving away from clean energy will leave Britain reliant on fossil fuels, which benefits Putin and Russia’s enormous oil and gas reserves.
A Labour source said: “Reform’s policies risk more than a million clean energy jobs and could leave taxpayers on the hook for higher energy bills.
“Nigel Farage has fawned over Putin and his close ally has pleaded guilty to pocketing Russian bribes. Reform UK is deeply unpatriotic and have abandoned British values.
“Labour won’t shy away from warning the public about the dangers of a Farage-led government.”
Last week the deputy prime minister David Lammy launched a scathing attack on Reform UK, claiming Vladimir Putin wants Nigel Farage and his “right-wing populist” allies to succeed so that they divide Europe
Keir Starmer has previously accused Mr Farage of “fawning over Putin”, and last month the Defence Secretary John Healey warned that Mr Farage could not be trusted with Britain’s national security, accusing him and his party of “looking up to” Mr Putin.
Asked previously whether he quizzed Mr Gill over statements made in favour of Russia, Mr Farage said: “I didn’t know anything about it, all I knew was that he’d been to Ukraine.
“I told him not to go, he defied me and went, I was completely unaware of any statements that he made.”
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