Farage hits back at former Irish leader's claim he would destroy the UK
The former Irish taoiseach predicted that the push for a united Ireland would take 'centre stage' if the Reform UK leader was to win a future general election.
Mr Varadkar told BBC Northern Ireland that a Farage government would 'double down on Brexit', which would bolster Irish unity and Scottish independence.
He said it was possible that England's 'volatile politics' could mean Mr Farage would become prime minister after elections in either four or nine years.
Mr Farage hit back at the claims by Mr Varadkar, who was Ireland's prime minister during the Brexit negotiations, during which time he became a bogeyman for Brexiteers and unionists.
'I have heard all of this before,' said Mr Farage. 'They said that a vote for Brexit would end the Union. It didn't and nor will the Reform government.'
Labour views Reform as its main rival in a future UK parliamentary election, which must take place by 2029, after the latter took hundreds of seats in local elections this year.
Last week, a poll said that Mr Farage could win an outright majority and become prime minister if an election was held tomorrow.
Mr Varadkar praised Sir Keir Starmer for his reset in relations with Dublin and Brussels since becoming Prime Minister.
The former Fine Gael leader played a key role in agreeing the withdrawal agreement, which created the Irish Sea border between Britain and Northern Ireland
'Prime Minister Starmer might be re-elected for a second term. It's equally possible, not probable but possible, that Nigel Farage could be prime minister of the UK in four years' time, or in nine years' time,' he said.
He added that Mr Farage and his supporters believed that Brexit 'had not been done properly' and would roll back the reset.
'What you'd see is an attempt to rescind many of the things that Prime Minister Starmer and his Government have done [and this would] bring the United Kingdom even further away from the European Union,' Mr Varadkar said.
He added he hoped Mr Farage would not become prime minister but said it 'would change the picture in terms of attitudes towards independence in Scotland'.
'I think it would change the views of some people in the middle ground in Northern Ireland [towards Irish unity],' he added.
'It isn't just because a Right-wing nationalist government in London would want to bring the UK and Northern Ireland away from Europe. It is other things as well,' said Mr Varadkar.
He added that Reform-run councils in England were 'preventing people from flying Pride or progress flags'.
'I don't think most people in Northern Ireland would like that,' he told the BBC.
The Belfast or Good Friday Agreement states that the secretary of state for Northern Ireland must call a referendum if it 'appears likely' a majority wants a united Ireland.
A border poll must also be held in the Republic. While polls show large support for reunification, they also consistently show a majority in favour of remaining part of the UK in Northern Ireland.
Mr Varadkar has become an outspoken advocate for Irish unity since he resigned as taoiseach last year because of his low popularity ratings.
His successor Simon Harris and coalition partner Micheál Martin, the leader of Fianna Fail, went on to overturn a commanding Sinn Fein lead in the polls to stay in power after elections last year.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
17 minutes ago
- Times
New Anglo-Australian defence treaty should include more nations
Nuclear-powered submarines are among some of the most complex objects built by man. They require exceptional build quality, such as in the welds used to ensure structural integrity. The skills required are scarce and in high demand, which is why even the United States finds it challenging to launch more than one a year. Together with the US, China, Russia, France and now India, the United Kingdom is a member of the small club of nations capable of producing these deadly prowlers of the ocean depths, the presence of which can send lesser navies scurrying for port. However, the immense cost of these vessels, the capital ships of the modern era, means that it is difficult to maintain a steady drumbeat of production. Gaps in orders can result in the running down of supply chains and an exodus of trained workers. That is why the signing this weekend of the 50-year Geelong treaty between the UK and Australia is so important. The agreement covers the construction in Barrow-in-Furness and Adelaide of a new class of hunter-killer sub (SSN), nuclear powered but conventionally armed. Britain is looking to build 12 in a move that would take the Royal Navy back to its Cold War strength. Australia may build half a dozen. Good news for Barrow, home to Britain's only nuclear yard, and Rolls Royce in Derby, where submarine reactors are made. Some 7,000 jobs will be created at Barrow and in the supply chain; the export of components to Australia will earn £20 billion over 25 years. There is, however, uncertainty hanging over the deal. Geelong is a subsidiary part of the Aukus agreement involving the US, UK and Australia. The idea is for the Americans to sell Australia three to five off-the-shelf SSNs to serve as a stop-gap before the arrival of its home-built subs in the 2040s. But Aukus, a child of the Biden era, is now in danger of falling victim to the Trump administration's 'America first' policy. There is fear in Washington that the loss of the subs would seriously undermine the US Navy's ability to defend Taiwan from invasion by China. This wavering American commitment to Aukus is further evidence of the need for US allies to future-proof their armed forces against its increasingly mercurial security policy. That means not being overly reliant on the US for equipment. Britain is already cooperating with Italy and Japan on the Tempest combat aircraft project, and growing closer to France and Germany in the nuclear and conventional fields. Geelong suggests another, complementary route: the rebuilding of Britain's defence-industrial ties with its most trusted friends in a 'Canzuk' alliance of Canada, Australia, the UK and New Zealand. These countries have gone their own way on trade, with old Commonwealth patterns of commerce replaced by regional ones, but they can all benefit from economies of scale. Together, Canzuk has a joint GDP that is fourth behind China, the US and the European Union. That promises economies of scale in defence procurement without the overweening influence of the US. The Canzuk concept joins together nations with shared histories and values. Trade may have declined, but not trust. The four are already partners in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance and can do a lot more to strengthen mutual security. In this uncertain world, where authoritarian powers threaten the international order and the US insurance policy is expiring, old ties can be put to new uses.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Angela Rayner on lessons learned from Labour's first year
Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey speak to Angela Rayner about Labour's first year in government and the challenges ahead. The deputy prime minister reveals the issue that keeps her awake at night, reflects on why voters are frustrated with Labour, what she thinks the party can do about it, and how it's planning to take the fight to Reform
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
‘I shouldn't have to fight for answers': David Amess's daughter on the MP's murder and her fury at his friends and colleagues
The last time Katie Amess saw her dad, the Conservative MP Sir David Amess, he was dropping her at Heathrow for her flight home to Los Angeles. Usually, she would cry when they said goodbye, but this time neither were sad – they were both excited. In six weeks, Katie would be back for her wedding. 'It was going to be in the House of Commons and my dad could not wait to walk me down the aisle,' she says. 'He'd been practising, taking my arm, walking me around. We joked about it – we were calling it the 'royal wedding'. At the airport, we hugged goodbye and he kissed me on both cheeks. I skipped off thinking the next time I saw him would be the best day of my life.' Instead, just four weeks later, her father was murdered at his surgery, stabbed 21 times by an Islamic State sympathiser. He was buried in the suit he was going to wear to the wedding. The music planned for walking Katie down the aisle – Pachelbel's Canon – was instead played as his coffin was carried into the church. The murder of David Amess in October 2021, while serving his constituency in a church hall in Leigh-on-Sea, sent shock waves across the country – and the details that have since emerged should have deepened the outrage and furthered the questions. Amess's killer, Ali Harbi Ali, was a once bright, motivated teenager planning to study medicine who had self-radicalised during Syria's civil war. The teachers at his Croydon school had noticed – one described it as a light going out and that his 'eyes were dead'. Ali's attendance fell, his grades plummeted and attempts to talk to him only raised more concerns, leading the school to contact Prevent, the government-led counter-terrorism strategy designed to identify and deradicalise extremists. One home visit was made, followed by one brief meeting between Ali and an 'intervention provider' in a McDonald's. Conversation was limited to two subjects: whether western music and student loans were unlawful in Islam. Ali was deemed a 'pleasant and informed young man'. (He later said: 'I just knew to nod my head and say yes and they would leave me alone afterwards and they did.') There was no follow-up, no further consultations or contact with his referring teachers. There was no monitoring. Despite the atrocity Ali went on to commit, Katie believes there has been little scrutiny of any of the above, no accountability or consequences for the anonymous officials involved and no requirement to give a public account of their actions and lessons learned. For almost four years, Katie, on behalf of the Amess family, has pushed for an inquiry. Partly as a result of this pressure, the Home Office commissioned Lord Anderson, the interim Prevent commissioner, to produce a rapid review of the case in order to identify whether questions remain unanswered. It was published last week and concluded: 'Though the information available on [Ali's] case is not complete and likely never will be,' the 'unhappy story' of his engagement with Prevent had been 'squeezed almost dry'. Katie doesn't agree. 'I'm not going to give up,' she says. 'All we want is for someone to say: 'We're sorry. This is what happened, these are the mistakes made and this is what we're doing to make sure it never happens again.' I shouldn't have to fight for answers.' Born in Basildon to an electrician father and a dressmaker mother, David Amess was a working-class, Catholic Conservative and had been an Essex MP for 38 years when he was murdered. He was approaching his 70th birthday – on that last airport trip with Katie, she had broached the subject of retirement. 'He didn't want to retire any time soon,' she says. 'He felt he had so much left to do.' Having an MP father was all Katie had ever known, but Amess was not an absent figure, away at Westminster. He was committed to his constituency with no ambitions for higher office. 'When I was young, I used to ask: 'Do you think you could be prime minister?' He'd say: 'Absolutely not!'' For Katie, the second of five children, all born within seven years, he was present and fun and always loomed large in her life. 'My dad was absolutely hilarious and completely inappropriate,' she says. 'He'd do the craziest things and sometimes they were a bit dangerous.' He would booby trap the house at Halloween. He would take all five children to water parks even though he couldn't swim and would have been unable to rescue any of them. At toll booths, on family road trips, all five children were instructed to blow raspberries while he paid the operator. 'He was obsessed with animals, so we had dogs, cats, chickens, bunny rabbits, hamsters, gerbils, a goat called Tinkerbell,' says Katie. 'He wanted a small pony at one point, but Mum vetoed that. He had fish and birds in his office even though no animals were allowed, but he didn't listen to rules. At Halloween, he'd go to Westminster in full goblin outfit. At Christmas, he'd put a tree on his balcony at Westminster, which was definitely not allowed, and his whole office was lit up with flashing lights.' From the age of four, Katie accompanied him to constituency events. 'My elder brother was out playing football and my mum had my three younger sisters to look after, so I was all dressed up and dragged to garden parties and village fetes.' Later, when she moved to London for drama school – she is now an actor – she stayed in her dad's London flat. 'I'm so glad I spent all that time with him so I could just be around him and soak up what he was about,' she says. 'I never knew I wouldn't be with him for another 30 years.' Amess was very well known in his Southend West and Leigh constituency. 'He spent so much time there,' says Katie. 'Everybody knew his name and face. I've received so many messages since he died saying: 'We didn't agree with him politically, but he helped my elderly parents'; 'He got support for my disabled child'; 'He visited my sick grandma in hospital.'' In some ways, his profile and accessibility made him vulnerable. He was the face of government and easy to locate. In fact, it later emerged that Ali had worked through a list of possible victims, including Michael Gove and Keir Starmer, both of who were deemed too complicated to find. Amess – targeted because he had voted in favour of airstrikes against Islamic State – was holding a surgery. (The pinned tweet on Amess's account gave the date, place and details of how to book.) 'I always worried about Dad's safety, but I thought if anything was going to happen, it would be a punch-up from a local yob,' says Katie. 'Never in your wildest dreams would you imagine that a terrorist would go through a list and then come and murder your dad. It's just so shocking. It's still unbelievable.' In the immediate aftermath, the family were too stunned to think about inquiries or even formulate questions. Katie remembers flying straight back to the UK, walking into the family home and seeing the runner beans Amess had picked from the garden before going to surgery. 'I washed up his breakfast plates – tea and toast – from the morning it happened as well as his dinner plates from the night before and could not believe it was the last time I'd ever be doing this,' she says. 'All those times I was annoyed that he'd left his plates for me to clean when I was in his London flat for drama school. Now, I just wanted to be able to clean them one more time.' When details about Ali's history with Prevent began surfacing, the family assumed an inquiry would be announced after his trial. (In April 2022, Ali was given a whole-life sentence.) Two home secretaries – Priti Patel and Suella Braverman – assured the family that they were working on it, but their successor James Cleverly refused to meet them. Instead, there has been only a Prevent learning review, completed in February 2022. This gives a glimpse of Prevent's failures in the case – the strange decision‑making (why focus on student loans and western music only?), the lack of record-keeping, the absence of communication, returned emails or follow-up. 'I was absolutely gobsmacked when I read it,' says Katie. 'I could run Prevent better with my friends. If these are the people entrusted to save us from terrorism, we've got a huge problem.' Equally striking is the sparsity of the review. No one involved is identified or even interviewed. It's a review of secondhand accounts and the records kept (and not kept). 'The main conclusion it seems to draw is that so much has changed with Prevent, it's all been fixed, so we don't need to look any harder,' says Katie. 'If that was true, why were three little girls murdered in Southport last year?' Axel Rudakubana, the Southport killer, was referred to and rejected by Prevent three times. One of the questions to be asked in the Southport inquiry is whether Prevent needs a complete overhaul. 'They could have asked that question years earlier after my dad was killed and perhaps Southport wouldn't have happened,' says Katie. Campaigning hasn't been easy. Katie is based in the US and her mother, Julia, is not well – she had a stroke shortly after Ali's trial, which the family attributes to trauma and grief. The change of government briefly gave them hope. Katie and Julia had a video meeting with Yvette Cooper, the new home secretary, who told them that Amess was a great friend, their Westminster offices were next door and they used to walk to the Commons chamber together. 'We thought: 'Perfect. Now we're getting somewhere,'' says Katie. Instead, months passed. Finally, in March, in another video call, Cooper admitted there wouldn't be an inquiry. 'My mum said: 'Look me in the eyes and tell me as his friend that you think you're doing the right thing.' Yvette Cooper could not answer.' In a formal letter, Cooper explained that it was 'hard to see' how an inquiry could go beyond what had already been established in the trial, the Prevent learning review and the coroner's report, as well as the forthcoming rapid review by Lord Anderson. 'When an elected official is killed in a church hall in broad daylight by somebody the government is monitoring, there should be an inquiry – it shouldn't even be a question,' says Amess. 'This isn't a witch-hunt, but there should be some accountability. The mistakes made cost me my father, my mother's husband, a grandfather, a brother, a son. 'I don't think we'll ever recover,' she continues. 'It's my 40th birthday this month and I know I'd have flown back to England like I did every summer and my dad would have thrown me a huge party. There'd have been 40 balloons and he'd have made my friends give me 40 bumps! I want to have children, but I think: 'What sort of mother would I be now when I'm in so much trauma and heartache?' I used to think he'd be such a funny grandpa. All that has been robbed from me.' For Katie, the lack of support from Westminster after her father's decades of service is deeply painful and nonsensical, too. 'I just cannot believe the way we've been treated by his friends and colleagues,' she says. 'It's in all their interests. They are meeting the public day in, day out, so why don't they want to investigate properly and establish what would make them safer? Dad's legacy needs to be that through what happened to him, he saves other people. Please, just show some human decency. Do the right thing.' Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
