Ed Davey warns that Nigel Farage wants to turn Britain into ‘Trump’s America’

Published

2 months ago

September 23, 2025

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Sir Ed Davey has used his keynote speech to warn that the UK has a choice between “the real change people crave”, and a Reform government turning Britain into “Trump’s America”.

The leader of the Liberal Democrats has sought to paint a picture of the country at a crossroads, and has heaped accusations on Nigel Farage – suggesting he would reverse gun laws and scrap the NHS.

Sir Ed has spent the past few days of the party’s conference in Bournemouth attacking tech titan Elon Musk and the Reform UK leader.

But now he has used his speech to try and tie the ideas of Mr Farage and President Trump together in voters’ minds.

He said: “Imagine living in the Trump-inspired country Farage wants us to become.

“Where there’s no NHS, so patients are hit with crippling insurance bills. Or denied healthcare altogether.

“Where we pay Putin for expensive fossil fuels and destroy our beautiful countryside with fracking – while climate change rages on.

“Where gun laws are rolled back, so schools have to teach our children what to do in case of a mass shooting. Where social media barons are free to poison young minds with impunity.”

Sir Ed also accused Mr Farage’s party of allowing “the government [to] trample on our basic rights and freedoms” by saying it will pull the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) – and of giving “tacit support” to racism and misogyny.

The Lib Dem claimed a Reform government would be “where everything is in a constant state of chaos”.

Under Mr Farage, those with mental health problems would be told they are “making it up”, and children with special educational needs that they have “been wrongly diagnosed”, Sir Ed said.

“That is Trump’s America. Don’t let it become Farage’s Britain,” he warned.

But Sir Ed has not only attacked Reform UK for what could happen if they came to power, but also for the “crisis”, which he accused Mr Farage of having already caused.

He pointed to the Reform leader’s support for leaving the EU, which led to 27 existing migrant return agreements being abolished.

Sir Ed said: “He caused this [small boats] crisis, and he should apologise.

“And look at this hypocrite’s big announcement on deportation last month.

“Look at what his plan really means. Sending men, women and children who have fled the Taliban back to Afghanistan to be murdered by them. And even paying the Taliban to do it.

“That isn’t patriotic. That isn’t British. That isn’t who we are.

“So much that is broken in our country today is broken thanks to Nigel Farage. And now he wants to break it even more. Unless we stop him.”

In fact, Sir Ed directly mentioned Mr Farage by name in his speech 30 times, a point made by our political editor Beth Rigby, who has argued that the Reform UK leader is living ‘rent-free’ in the Lib Dem’s head.

Farage is allied with Musk, Putin and Trump, Davey claims

But Sir Ed also had tech billionaire, Elon Musk, in his sights once again.

The Lib Dem leader repeated his allegation that the X owner was “inciting far-right violence” with his speech at the “Unite the Kingdom” rally last weekend.

He called for the UK to stand up to Mr Musk, and for the government to “properly enforce our laws so he can’t get away with inflicting harm on our kids”.

“Nigel Farage is on the side of Elon Musk, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump,” he alleged. “Liberal Democrats are on the side of the British people.”

Sky News has approached X and Elon Musk for comment about these comments that he has made previously, but as of publication has received no response.

X maintains it has “zero tolerance for child sexual abuse material” and claims tackling those who exploit children is a “top priority”.

Trump is ‘the biggest threat to the fight against cancer’

Another person to face Sir Ed’s ire was President Trump, who the leader accused of becoming “the biggest threat to the fight against cancer”.

“The US is by far the world’s biggest funder of cancer research – mostly through its National Cancer Institute,” the leader said.

“But since Donald Trump returned to the White House, he has cancelled hundreds of grants for cancer research projects.

“He’s slashing billions of dollars from the National Cancer Institute’s budget.”

Sir Ed appealed for scientists who have had projects cancelled or funding cut to “come here and finish it in the UK”.

He said a dedicated scheme should be established to allow them to move to work at British research institutions, without having to pay large visa fees.

He also used his speech to pledge to boost healthcare and cancer research more widely.

He told party members: “The UK should step up and say: if Trump won’t back this research, we will.

“We’ll boost funding for cancer research in the UK. We’ll rebuild a National Cancer Research Institute, after it was closed under the Conservatives, to coordinate research and drive it forward.

“We’ll pass a Cancer Survival Research Act to ensure funding for research into the deadliest cancers.”

He also announced a “cast-iron guarantee” that each patient in the UK diagnosed with cancer will start treatment within two months under the Liberal Democrats.

Sir Ed also:

Urged the government to create a new “coalition of the willing” to take on Trump’s tariffs
Said he would like to win more seats than the Conservatives at the next general election, for the first time since 1910
Appealed to traditional Tory voters and urged them to vote for him “to oppose this failing Labour government”

Politics

All four UK governments ‘failed to appreciate’ scale of COVID pandemic threat – inquiry finds

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2 hours ago

November 20, 2025

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All four UK governments 'failed to appreciate' scale of COVID pandemic threat - inquiry finds

All four UK governments failed to appreciate the scale of the threat posed by COVID-19 or the urgency of the response the pandemic required, a damning report published on Thursday has claimed.

Baroness Heather Hallett, the chair of the inquiry, described the response to the pandemic as “too little, too late”.

Tens of thousands of lives could have been saved during the first wave of COVID-19 had a mandatory lockdown been introduced a week earlier, the inquiry also found.

Noting how a “lack of urgency” made a mandatory lockdown “inevitable”, the report references modelling data to claim there could have been 23,000 fewer deaths during the first wave in England had it been introduced a week earlier.

The UK government first introduced advisory restrictions on 16 March 2020, including self-isolation, household quarantine and social distancing.

Had these measures been introduced sooner, the report states, the mandatory lockdown which followed from 23 March might not have been necessary at all.

COVID-19 first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019, and as it developed into a worldwide pandemic, the UK went in and out of unprecedented lockdown measures for two years starting from March 2020.

Lady Hallett admitted in her summary that politicians in the government and devolved administrations were forced to make decisions where “there was often no right answer or good outcome”.

“Nonetheless,” she said, “I can summarise my findings of the response as ‘too little, too late'”.

Report goes long way to answer inquiry’s critics

This scathing report goes a long way to answer the Covid 19 Inquiry’s critics who have consistently attacked it as a costly waste of time.

They tried to undermine Lady Hallet’s attempt to understand what went wrong and how we might do better as a lame exercise that would achieve very little.

Well, we now know that Boris Johnson’s “toxic and chaotic” government could well have prevented at least 23,000 deaths had they acted sooner and with greater urgency.

The response was “too little, too late”. And that nobody in power truly understood the scale of the emerging threat or the urgency of the response it required.

The grieving families who lost loved ones in the pandemic want answers. They want names. And they want accountability.

But that is beyond the remit of this Inquiry.

The publication of the report into Module 2 will bring them no comfort, it may even cause them more distress but it will bring them closer to understanding why the UK’s response to this unprecedented health crisis was so poor.

And we can easily identify the “advisors and ministers whose alleged rule breaking caused huge distress and undermined public confidence”.

Or who was in charge of the Department of Health and Social Care, as it misled the public by giving the impression that the UK was well prepared for the pandemic when it clearly was not.

‘Toxic culture’ at the heart of UK government

The report said there was “a toxic and chaotic culture” at the heart of the UK government during the pandemic.

The inquiry heard evidence about the “destabilising behaviour of a number of individuals” – including former No 10 adviser Dominic Cummings.

It said that by failing to tackle this chaotic culture – “and, at times, actively encouraging it” – former PM Boris Johnson “reinforced a culture in which the loudest voices prevailed and the views of other colleagues, particularly women, often went ignored, to the detriment of good decision-making”.

‘Misleading assurances’

The inquiry found all four governments in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland failed to understand the urgency of response the pandemic demanded in the early part of 2020.

The report reads: “This was compounded, in part, by misleading assurances from the Department of Health and Social Care and the widely held view that the UK was well prepared for a pandemic.”

The report notes how the UK government took a “high risk” when it significantly eased restrictions in England in July 2020 – “despite scientific advisers’ concerns about the public health risks of doing so”.

Lady Hallett has made 19 key recommendations which, if followed, she believes will better protect the UK in any future pandemic and improve decision-making in a crisis.

Repeated failings ‘inexcusable’

In a statement following the publication of Thursday’s report, Lady Hallett said there was a “serious failure” by all four governments to appreciate the level of “risk and calamity” facing the UK.

She said: “The tempo of the response should have been increased. It was not. February 2020 was a lost month.”

Lady Hallett said the inquiry does not advocate for national lockdowns, which she said should have been avoided if at all possible.

She said: “But to avoid them, governments must take timely and decisive action to control a spreading virus. The four governments of the UK did not.”

Lady Hallett said none of the governments were adequately prepared for the challenges and risks that a lockdown presented, and that many of the same failings were repeated later in 2020, which she said was “inexcusable”.

She added: “Each government had ample warning that the prevalence of the virus was increasing and would continue to do so into the winter months. Yet again, there was a failure to take timely and effective action.”

Politics

Prospective CFTC chair’s nomination advances through committee

Published

2 hours ago

November 20, 2025

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Prospective CFTC chair’s nomination advances through committee

Michael Selig’s nomination to chair the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission is headed for a vote on the Senate floor after clearing a committee hurdle.

In a Thursday notice, Republican leaders with the Senate Agriculture Committee said they had advanced Selig’s nomination following a Wednesday hearing. The vote was reportedly along party lines, with no Democrats supporting Selig as US President Donald Trump’s pick to replace acting Chair Caroline Pham.

Politics, Government, Congress, CFTC — *Source:* *Senate Agriculture Committee Republicans*

The prospective CFTC chair answered questions from senators on Wednesday regarding potential conflicts of interest, his policy positions on DeFi and digital assets and the dearth of leadership at the federal agency. Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal supported his confirmation, citing Selig’s support for a digital asset market structure bill moving through Congress.

Selig was Trump’s second pick to chair the CFTC following the withdrawal of Brian Quintenz’s nomination. Selig will need support from at least 50 senators to be confirmed.

Four commissioner seats are still open

Even if Selig were to be confirmed quickly, Trump has not announced any nominees to fill the two remaining Republican and two Democratic seats at the CFTC. Since September, Pham has served as the agency’s sole Republican commissioner.