Nigel Farage ‘GB News right to sack Fox’

Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage appeared on Good Morning Britain today and revealed that he wouldn’t rejoin the Conservative party.

He also shared his thoughts on Rishi Sunak’s proposed smoking laws and why he believes that GB News was right to sack Laurence Fox.

Despite a video emerging earlier this week showing Nigel dancing with MP Priti Patel at the Conservative party conference and other footage of him posing for selfies with young Tories, Nigel told hosts Ben Shephard and Kate Garraway, “Frankly, would I rejoin them? No. I will go to the Reform UK conference on Saturday. They’re not going to win the election but at least they’re fighting for the right ideas.”

When Ben asked Nigel if he was expecting the attention that he received at the party, Nigel revealed, “No, I fought against them for years, I fought elections against them… I was always accused of having an agenda that was extreme and bad and wrong.

“Yet those things that I fought for over the years, including getting rid of HS2, have now come quite mainstream with the Conservative party. I really was welcomed with open arms.”

Nigel continued, “Lots of young delegates are looking for ideas. They want a really positive vision for the future of the country and I think they look at a lot of Tory politicians, frankly who have been uninspiring.

“It was very nice of Rishi to say ‘We’re a broad church and we’d have him back’, which previous Conservative leaders would never have said.”

When Kate asked if ‘desperation’ was the reason for Nigel’s warm welcome at the party conference this week, Nigel shared, “Oh, they’re in trouble, particularly in the red wall. Those red wall votes that went Conservative in 2019 had nearly all come through UKIP… you can see why they’re being nice to me.”

On the Prime Minister going to Spain today for help with the current immigration issue in the UK, Nigel said, “He’s absolutely wasting his time because the Europeans are at war with themselves. The German president last week said, ‘We’re at breaking point, we can’t take any more people across the Mediterranean.'” 

“The Poles [Polish] have now built a massive wall on their Eastern border and said they’ll take zero people, so the battle within the European Union is enormous.

“The European Union have got it wrong. They have said that anybody that crosses the med and sets foot on EU soil can stay and that’s why millions come and millions more will come.”

When Kate asked what the alternative was and Nigel replied, “Whatever the circumstances, there is a limit to the number of people we can take.”

On Rishi Sunak seeking to raise the legal age of smoking every year by a year, Nigel said, “Rishi Sunak is probably the most intelligent and decent Prime Minister we’ve had for many, many years. How a man that clever brings [in] a law that stupid, I don’t know. 

“Can you imagine in 10 years’ time you go to the local shop to buy fags and you were asked for ID? ‘Oh sorry, you’re only 24, you’ve got to be 25.’ All you do is create a black market. All this focus on smoking ignores a bigger problem. Drugs, [which] short-term are catastrophic for young people.”

Ben also asked Nigel – who presents a show on GB News what he thought about Laurence Fox being fired from the station Talk TV have branded a ‘hate channel’, “GB News wanted to be a free speech station and quite right too. There are some issues that weren’t being properly debated across UK media. There’s a big difference between free speech and being rude. 

“What Laurence Fox said about the journalist, Ava Evans, was unnecessary, out of place, rude… it wasn’t the first time he’d done it. For any channel to work, it has to be a team game. You need team players. The fact that they’ve sacked him, it’s the right thing.

“Overall, GB News has come into this space and it’s a good debate platform and I’m very proud to be a part of it. Fox went way over the line, not just this time but other times and he had to go.”

Good Morning Britain weekdays from 6am on ITV1 & ITVX