In Birmingham, Reform UK has begun its conference amid a wave of allegations that has forced Nigel Farage to suspend two of his top aides. The party hopes to get back on the front foot this afternoon with a press conference between the Reform UK leader and Jordan Bardella, a leading member of France’s National Rally (RN) party. Farage has made much of his relationship with Bardella. He claims that if Marine Le Pen wins control of the Élysée next spring, then her young male compatriot will serve as the French premier, working with a Reform UK government to stop the Channel crossings.
‘We have been working for several months with Nigel Farage to strengthen co-operation’, Bardella told The Spectator,’ shortly before the joint event. Reform is, ‘the only political party that has the courage, the determination and the lucidity to solve a problem they denounced before anyone else.’ He believes that the deal he will unveil today could not be agreed with the Labour government. ‘I give your new Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt, since he has only just arrived… but unfortunately I do not think there is much to expect in terms of the major changes that are needed to regain control and security over the Channel.’ He heaps praise on Farage, claiming ‘we speak the same language’ and placing huge emphasis on his personal character: ‘I hope he will one day be Prime Minister, because that will be the reward for a strong character.’
‘I am convinced that in the new European architecture…. we could tomorrow work with Great Britain’.
Bardella insists that the interests of Reform and the RN are aligned. Yet Farage’s party is committed to reopening the post-Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, something most European leaders are keen to avoid. The 30-year-old suggests that a deal is potentially possible under the kind of reformed European Union he wants to champion. ‘I am convinced that in the new European architecture…. we could tomorrow work with Great Britain’. The UK, he says, voted to leave the EU a decade ago, but ‘we will try to convince them that another form of European co-operation is possible.’ Bardella believes that ‘if tomorrow we succeed in putting in place a Europe of nations and of co-operation between states, then necessarily Great Britain could take part in that common working space.’
Asked about Reform’s plan to remove benefits from French nationals, Bardella declined to address the specifics, preferring instead to suggest his own measures would be based heavily on ‘national preference.’ Like Reform, his party has previously been criticised for being soft on Moscow: Bardella’s view is that ‘Russia is a hybrid threat to Europe today’ but that ‘the absolute priority must be to silence the weapons, to negotiate peace and that will be the position of the French government if tomorrow we win.’ He sees parallels between media exposes like the Channel 4 one this week and Marine Le Pen’s conviction for misusing EU funds: ‘We are both confronting an extremely powerful system that has also designed us as its primary opponent…. when you want to climb the tallest tree in the forest, you should not be surprised that the wind blows harder.’
After conference, Bardella wants to strengthen the bonds between his party and Reform UK. ‘I hope we will have the opportunity to deepen our work even further in the coming months’, he says. ‘All this is not just for show or communication; it is intended to prepare very clearly and very concretely the work we will do if tomorrow I am Prime Minister and he himself is Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.’ Expect to see further details at the press conference later today.
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