September 20th 2024.
Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform UK party, made a playful remark about Prime Minister Keir Starmer's apparent love for accepting gifts during his speech at the party's conference near Birmingham. This comes after questions were raised about the £30,000 worth of plane tickets to the US that Farage himself has received from friends. However, Farage was quick to brush off these inquiries, claiming that the tickets were not really gifts at all.
During his speech, Farage pulled out a pair of glasses from his pocket and told the crowd that they were "very expensive, but I bought them myself." This was a jab at Starmer, who had accepted multiple pairs of glasses from Labour peer Lord Waheed Alli, worth a total of £2,485, before the General Election in July. The Register of Members' Interests also revealed that Alli had given Starmer work clothing worth £16,200. In comparison, Farage had accepted gifts of plane tickets to the US for himself and a staffer, totaling £32,836.
When questioned about these gifts after his speech, Farage defended himself by saying, "They're not really gifts, are they? I had a friend going to America, I hopped on the plane. Is that a gift?" He also stated in the register that his reason for the visit was to support a friend who had been almost killed and to represent his constituency of Clacton on the world stage.
Starmer has faced criticism for his acceptance of gifts, both as leader of the opposition and now as Prime Minister. Four days after Donald Trump was wounded in an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally, Farage flew out to the US, although it is unclear if he actually met with the presidential candidate during his visit. In a recent interview with LBC, Farage defended Trump's controversial claims about Haitian immigrants eating family pets in the city of Springfield, Ohio. When asked about the responsibility of politicians to fact-check their statements, Farage responded, "Every time Trump says something that seems outrageous, it ends up being true in the end."
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