Nigel Farage has been accused of “parroting Kremlin lines” after stating he would vote against any UK government plan to deploy troops to Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force. The Reform UK leader’s comments came after Britain and France signalled readiness to send troops following a peace deal.
Cabinet minister Pat McFadden said Farage’s stance cast doubt on his commitment to national security and should give voters “pause for thought”. “This guarantee is not just for Ukraine, it’s for the whole of Europe,” McFadden said. “It’s in the British national interest … and that’s why it’s so concerning to me to see some politicians, like Mr Farage, for example, immediately come out [and] parrot the Kremlin line.”
Farage, one of five Reform MPs, told Times Radio he would vote against any such deployment, arguing the UK lacked the manpower and equipment for an open-ended operation. He added he might support it if a larger coalition allowed for troop rotation, but said “as it is, it will be us and the French completely exposed for an unlimited period of time”.
His remarks followed a summit of the “coalition of the willing” in Paris, where Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Emmanuel Macron signed a declaration with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, committing to ground troop deployment. Starmer later said MPs would have a debate and vote before any UK troops were sent.
A Labour spokesperson described Farage’s comments as “the behaviour of Putin’s puppet”, adding: “Nigel Farage’s equivocation on support for Ukraine is an insult to those who have fought to defend freedom.” Farage has previously expressed admiration for Vladimir Putin and warned against “poking the Russian bear with a stick”, though he later called the invasion of Ukraine “immoral, outrageous and indefensible”.
