War in Ukraine ‘needs concessions on both sides’, says Nigel Farage
The war in Ukraine needs “concessions on both sides” if it is to come to an end, Nigel Farage has said.
The Reform UK leader suggested the invaded nation could gain “quite a lot from settling”, though he refused to say if this meant giving up territory to Russia in return.
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Mr Farage was speaking to Sky News after travelling back from America following his ally Donald Trump’s election victory.
Asked about the president-elect’s claims he could end the war in Ukraine “on day one”, Mr Farage said: “Well, the war is horrendous. There are nearly a million battle casualties. It’s like the battle of the Somme with drones.
“We have two options. We can keep feeding Ukraine, and that’s fine. And the war goes on for another year, two years, five years. The casualties mount. What Trump has said is he wants to attempt to broker a peace deal.”
The Clacton MP said that would require “concessions on both sides”, adding: ” I think Ukraine could actually gain quite a lot.”
He would not be drawn on whether that could mean Ukraine giving up territory, but said that “any negotiation is going to involve things that the other side don’t like”.
He added: “I think that the appeal to Ukraine would be part of that negotiation would be that Ukraine would become a full part of NATO. Now, Putin would hate that… but that would have to be part of the deal.
“If there were territorial concessions, that’s all for the negotiations.”
Pressed on if he thinks Ukraine should be open to territorial concessions, he said: “I’m not playing your silly game. I think there should be peace talks.”
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He added that while former prime minister Boris Johnson, a staunch backer of Ukraine, wants “the war to go on forever… all wars end either in negotiation, with concessions or annihilation”.
Armed conflict in eastern Ukraine erupted in early 2014 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and escalated in February 2022 when Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion.
Mr Farage previously drew criticism for his views on the conflict during the UK’s general election campaign, when he said the West “provoked” Russia into the invasion with NATO’s and the EU’s expansion.
He ultimately won the seat for Clacton in Essex, but has since faced criticism for not spending enough time in his constituency.
Asked about this during his interview, Mr Farage said: “I’ve just exchanged contracts on the house that I’ll be living there in, is that good enough?”
He also questioned how much time Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer spends in his constituency, or Lib Dem leader Ed Davey, saying things were different for party leaders than backbench MPs.
“I am representing Clacton, yes, but I’m also leading a national political party which is rapidly rising in the polls, which we have to build from the ground up,” he said.
“Today is Friday. Very often MPs are in constituencies on Friday. I’m in Wales, we’re having an inaugural Reform UK conference here. We’re looking to the Senedd elections.
“Tomorrow, I’ll be in Exeter. If you’re a national party leader, it’s different.”
After the interview, a source close to Mr Farage said: “Nigel has been to Clacton more than 10 times since being elected. He has kept his promise to have a property in the constituency, writes a weekly column for the Clacton Gazette (10 weeks in a row) and is having two further visits next week.”
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Nigel Farage’s deportation plan relies on these conditions – legal expert explains if it could work
Explaining how they plan to tackle what they described as illegal migration, Nigel Farage and his Reform UK colleague Zia Yusuf were happy to disclose some of the finer details – how much money migrants would be offered to leave and what punishments they would receive if they returned.
But the bigger picture was less clear.
How would Reform win a Commons majority, at least another 320 seats, in four years’ time – or sooner if, as Mr Farage implied, Labour was forced to call an early election?
How would his party win an election at all if, as its leader suggested, other parties began to adopt his policies?
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Highly detailed legislation would be needed – what Mr Farage calls his Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill.
But Reform would not have a majority in the House of Lords and, given the responsibilities of the upper house to scrutinise legislation in detail, it could take a year or more from the date of an election for his bill to become law.
Reform’s four-page policy document says the legislation would have to disapply:
• The United Nations refugee convention of 1951, extended in 1967, which says people who have a well-founded fear of persecution must not be sent back to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom
• The United Nations convention against torture, whose signatories agree not expel, return or extradite anyone to a country where there are substantial grounds to believe the returned person would be in danger of being tortured
• The Council of Europe anti-trafficking convention, which requires states to provide assistance for victims
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According to the policy document, derogation from these treaties is “justified under the Vienna Convention doctrine of state necessity”.
That’s odd, because there’s no mention of necessity in the Vienna Convention on the law of treaties – and because member states can already “denounce” (leave) the three treaties by giving notice.
It would take up to a year – but so would the legislation. Only six months’ notice would be needed to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, another of Reform’s objectives.
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Mr Farage acknowledged that other European states were having to cope with an influx of migrants. Why weren’t those countries trying to give up their international obligations?
His answer was to blame UK judges for applying the law. Once his legislation had been passed, Mr Farage promised, there would be nothing the courts could do to stop people being deported to countries that would take them. His British Bill of Rights would make that clear.
Courts will certainly give effect to the will of parliament as expressed in legislation. But the meaning of that legislation is for the judiciary to decide. Did parliament really intend to send migrants back to countries where they are likely to face torture or death, the judges may be asking themselves in the years to come.
They will answer questions such as that by examining the common law that Mr Farage so much admires – the wisdom expressed in past decisions that have not been superseded by legislation. He cannot be confident that the courts will see the problem in quite the same way that he does.
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