Scathing of Albo, would-be UK prime minister Nigel Farage backs Dutton to win federal election
With his party soaring in the polls as he travels around the country, Nigel Farage is hellbent on making his way into 10 Downing Street – and seeing a Peter Dutton victory Down Under.
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He was the poster boy for Brexit, and now Nigel Farage is hellbent on making his way into 10 Downing Street and becoming Britain’s next prime minister.
The 61-year-old, the leader of the relatively new conservative party Reform UK and a close ally of US president Donald Trump, spoke exclusively to News Corp while on the campaign trail for the British council elections on May 1.
Stopping off at Kent in southeast England to shore up more votes, Mr Farage undoubtedly has all the momentum in British politics right now.
The party has soared in the polls as he travels around the country championing right-wing policies including the deportation of illegal immigrants, curbing legal migration, scrapping net zero targets, banning working from home for public servants, and reducing the hefty tax burden on workers.
He said many issues in Australia are “not dissimilar” to the UK, including “what mass immigration is doing to our sense of identity and what the increasing sense of lawlessness in our city means, and the march of woke which I think Australia knows even more than we do”.
Mr Farage, who fondly admits his love for Australia, delivered a scathing assessment of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s term in office and said the nation’s relationship with the US will be strengthened if Liberal leader Peter Dutton proves victorious at the May 3 election.
Mr Farage also has close personal ties with former Neighbours star Holly Valance, whose billionaire husband Nick Candy is Reform UK’s treasurer, and has hinted at the possibility of the former singer making a tilt at British politics.
ALBO V DUTTON
Mr Farage has the ear of the US president and has declared that a win by the Coalition under Mr Dutton at the upcoming election would significantly bolster Australia’s relationship with the Trump administration.
He gave an unflattering view of Mr Albanese’s prime ministership and said his decision to forge ahead with the Voice referendum in 2023 – which was ultimately rejected by 60 per cent of voters – proved disastrous and damaged his political credibility for good.
“It was the wokest referendum ever held anywhere and he had it handed to him on a plate, didn’t he,” Mr Farage told News Corp.
“He thought he would breeze through, Qantas and all the big companies backing him, the elites in Melbourne and Sydney backing him, and yet the Australian people decisively said no and I think that referendum, to me, sums up a failed premiership.”
Mr Farage said Britain’s relationship with Mr Trump was “absolutely key” – as it is for Australia – to ensure ties between the two countries remain solid, but despite this he remained pragmatic that Mr Trump would always put America’s interests first.
“I would have thought Dutton would speak more of the language of Trump than Albanese would,” he said.
“But let’s not forget the Trump agenda is America first, so we might be friends but he’s always going to put American interests first, and we have to bear that in mind.”
TARIFFS
As Trump rolls out a plethora of tariffs on various nations, including allies such as Australia, the UK and Canada, Mr Farage said he didn’t agree with this approach for all countries.
“I’m not a fan of tariffs. I believe in competitiveness, however, you have to say that China has really abused the international trading system that we let it into 20 years ago,” he said.
“Take steel as an argument. (China) flooded the market with steel a few years ago … to gain market share.
“I think there are circumstances where countries like China, who frankly steal from us, many of our bright ideas, undercut us, use slave labour to make solar panels and many other things like that – so I understand when Trump talks in those terms about China, for example.
“When it comes to tariffs with us or you, it’s obviously very much more difficult.”
BRITAIN’S NEXT PM
Mr Farage hit out at Britain’s Conservative Party and said at the 2024 election they lost an 80-seat majority after they were decimated by the Labour Party led by Sir Keir Starmer.
Labour has 404 seats, compared to the Conservatives with 121, and Reform has four.
Reform’s popularity has continued to soar in recent months.
Two years ago Mr Farage was long odds to make it into 10 Downing Street, but a recent poll showed he is now 3/1 favourite to be the UK’s next prime minister.
Asked if he wants the job, Mr Farage made it abundantly clear that’s exactly what he wants.
“Compared to the current mob, yes I do. If I’m the best we’ve got, we are in real trouble,” Mr Farage said.
But he doesn’t shy away from the fact Reform’s performance at the upcoming council elections will be watched extremely closely to see if voters are switching to the right wing party.
“It’s enormously important … this is the next big hurdle and we have to clear it,” Mr Farage said.
“I’m under no illusions that the pressure is on for the next month.”
HOLLY CANDY (VALANCE)
Former Neighbours star Holly Candy, nee Valance, has made her political affiliations well known in recent years, photographed alongside Mr Farage and Mr Trump.
Her husband, British billionaire businessman Nick Candy, who was previously a wealthy donor to the Conservative Party, was in December appointed Reform UK’s treasurer.
But the couple’s links to politics don’t end there. Mr Farage has hinted that Ms Candy will likely boost her public involvement in politics down the track.
“Holly obviously marrying Nick, having two daughters, (she) very much stepped back from the public fray, but she is kind of inching her way back into it … she is a big supporter of Reform,” he said.
“Nick, her husband, has become our treasurer so I wouldn’t say Holly is fully involved back in public life but I think she’s on a journey whereby, at some point, she might be.”
Mr Farage described Ms Candy as being “very motivated” and this could see her forging ahead with pursuing any political aspirations she may have.
“She’s very motivated … those motivations that led her to be so successful in acting and singing and all those things she did 20 years ago,” he said.
“If she applies that same level of professionalism and dedication to politics – well, it could be very interesting.”
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