Reform’s newest defector has said it is “unfortunate” that Nigel Farage did not declare the £5 million gift from Christopher Harborne but not worse than Starmer appointing Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.
Speaking on GB News he said: “I am rather disgusted by the pile on against Nigel Farage and Reform at the moment. It’s unfortunate that Nigel didn’t fill in the details under the relatively new House of Commons rules on declaring interests from before one was elected. Those didn’t apply for most of my parliamentary career.
“But the laughable idea that he’s done something worse than, for example, our [former] prime minister appointing a known associate of a paedophile and then using a parliamentary majority to stop himself from facing parliament’s own kangaroo court is ridiculous.
“And I’ve admired Nigel for a long time, and I felt now was the moment actually to stand up and be counted.
“I think the difference [between Reform and the Conservative Party] is one of drive, and the appetite in the party for drive. To give just one example, the inability to solve the small boats crisis, which started under the last Conservative government, came back to the courts.
“Now both parties are saying they would abolish the ECHR, which I’m strongly in favour of, but the Conservatives seem quite unwilling to recognise the fact that British judges have behaved very differently with regard to the ECHR from most continental judges, and I believe that Reform will be willing to tackle the problems we’ve got with our judges and not simply gloss over it.
“I mean, we had one incident of judicial activism after another under the last government, and really very little action taken by the government to deal with it.
“It’s not just about the ECHR. Perhaps you’ve heard a hint from within the party, of which you’re still very much an active member. Perhaps you’ve heard a hint that they would abolish the so-called Supreme Court, a very unsatisfactory organisation, and go back to the much more sensible arrangement before, but I heard no hint of that at all.
“I did hear the Attorney General talking about a quite unrelated issue, which is the scandal of the journalists being pursued by Russian oligarchs with extremely well-qualified London solicitors in their pay, and he seemed to suggest that this was a matter for the bar and solicitors’ disciplinary authorities, and not something a government should intervene in..
“So I think an appetite for being willing to take the lawyers on is one of the key differences.”
