To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video. Up Next. Nigel Farage has said Ukraine needs a ‘timeline for elections’ after Donald Trump derided Volodymyr Zelensky for not holding any while his country is at war.
The Reform leader also said European leaders had shown themselves to be ‘pretty irrelevant’ in tackling the conflict. However, he blamed Russia for its 2022 invasion and said the Ukrainian president is ‘not a dictator’ – disagreeing with stances the US president has taken in recent days.
In an interview on GB News, Farage said: ‘You should always take everything Donald Trump says seriously, you shouldn’t always take things Donald Trump says absolutely literally. ‘I think that applies very much in this case.’. He continued: ‘Let’s be clear, Zelensky is not a dictator.
‘But it’s only right and proper that Ukrainians have a timeline for elections.’. The Clacton MP recalled recently accusing Sir Keir Starmer of ‘acting like a dictator’ when he delayed upcoming local elections for a year to allow for a restructuring of councils.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said Farage sounded like a ‘spokesman for Trump’ in his comments. He added: ‘Nigel Farage has chosen to explain away Trump’s outrageous remarks about President Zelensky instead of doing the right thing and condemning them.
‘Deeply disappointing but not at all surprising.’. In his appearance on GB News, Farage also said Keir Starmer’s comments that elections were suspended during the Second World War were incorrect, as a vote was held in July 1945. However, while the war only came to a full end with Japan’s surrender in August, the 1945 election took place after the surrender of Germany on VE Day the previous May.
Farage backed Trump’s decision to begin negotiations with Russia, saying he had promised he would ‘bring Putin to the negotiating table’, and ‘that is exactly what he’s done’. He added: ‘Is it right to try to seek a peace in a war that has now seen one million battle casualties? Yes.’.
The US administration did not invite Ukraine to the talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, a decision that received heavy criticism in Europe. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk. For more stories like this, check our news page.
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