Reform UK chief Nigel Farage had been due to appear on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg – days after boasting over Tory MP Robert Jenrick’s defection
Nigel Farage has pulled out of the BBC’s flagship politics show with Reform UK saying he’s “under the weather “.
The Reform chief had been due to appear on the Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme – days after boasting over Tory MP Robert Jenrick’s defection to his party’s ranks. Instead, Richard Tice, the Reform UK deputy leader, was sent out to speak for the party.
Ms Kuenssberg said: “We were expecting Nigel Farage to join us this week before Reform tells us he’s under the weather. So the deputy leader of Reform, Richard Tice, set his alarm early at the last minute.”
It came as Cabinet minister Lisa Nandy would not confirm or deny reports she had warned colleagues that there was a prospect of a “fascist” government led by Mr Farage.
The Culture Secretary told Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips she would not repeat what was said confidentially at a Cabinet meeting, but of Reform UK and Mr Farage she said: “I come from a mixed race background. I’ve seen this playbook before where people try to scapegoat and demonise other people.”
She added: “The truth is that it’s not migrants, in the end, it’s not people with different coloured skin who are responsible for the problems that this country has. It’s one group of people and one group of people alone, and they’re the people that he’s welcoming with open arms to his own party.”
Pressed on whether she would use the word “fascist” about a Farage-led government, she said: “I’m not sure that labels are particularly helpful … Well, I’ve got a lot of experience of living with the consequences of othering and people who are trying to divide us from one another.
“And I guess I would just say that if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, in my experience, it usually is a duck.”