Nigel Farage takes half in a fifth of Commons votes – as he defends second job

Nigel Farage took part in just a fifth of Commons votes since the election – despite delivering a lengthy TV rant defending his well-paid second job.

The Reform UK leader furiously defended his £80,000 a month job at GB News, accusing Labour of trying to “bully” him out of it. It follows the formation of a new “modernisation committee” of MPs, who will – among other things – consider whether MPs should be allowed to hold lucrative media positions on top of their main job.

Insisting he was “not a whinger”, Mr Farage whinged: “I don’t see any conflict of interest between being an MP and coming here three evenings a week for an hour. And by the way, if there are crucial votes I just won’t be here.”

But Mr Farage has voted just three times since being elected as MP for Clacton – missing votes on major issues.

He did not vote in the vote to establish Great British Energy, or to take railways into public ownership. Neither did he vote against the early release of prisoners, an issue he’s regularly railed against, including on his thrice weekly GB News programme.

A Labour spokesperson said: “Maybe the snake oil salesman isn’t turning up to Parliament because he is afraid he will be found out. Maybe he is intimidated by the responsibility and prefers jet-setting around the world with fellow Putin-apologists.

“Or maybe he is exploiting his parliamentary role as a machine for his personal celebrity. Whatever, he is doing, he isn’t serving his Clacton constituents.”

Despite claiming on air that he only does his GB News programme for “an hour”, three times a week, he told Parliament authorities he does 32 hours a month for the channel – amounting to around eight hours a week.

A spokesperson for Nigel Farage argued the Reform leader had voted more times than Keir Starmer or Rishi Sunak, and a “comparable number” of times to Ed Davey.

Mr Davey has voted eight times since the election.

The spokesperson added: “As far as I can see, Starmer has only made one vote since April and didn’t even vote for his own King’s Speech. We look forward to a Mirror article about the other party leaders.”