Nigel Farage blasts President Donald Trump for 'failing to keep promises'
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Nigel Farage has scolded his friend Donald Trump for 'failing to keep promises' in his first remarks since the US President suffered a drubbing in this week's midterm elections.
The Reform UK leader also branded the US's eight–month conflict with Iran a 'mistake' which had cost the President's Republican party at the polls.
Asked on Thursday what the lesson was for President Trump following the seismic defeat, Mr Farage said: 'Yes, keep your promises.
'Trump was very good in his first term and second term at keeping his promises. But he broke a promise, and that was no more foreign wars.
'We are eight months in and the result is a rise in gas and diesel prices. More than anything else that it was did them in. The key is keeping your promises and, of course, the cost of living is key,' he added.
In a remarkable turnaround in US politics and after a decade of dominance for President Trump's 'Make America Great Again' movement, his party lost control of both houses of Congress on Tuesday.
The staggering defeat to the Democratic Party was widely interpreted as a vote against the eight–month conflict with Iran, which President Trump and his allies had previously boasted they could win in days.
Mr Farage had initially supported the conflict, which began at the end of February, saying 'the gloves need to come off,' but he then changed his tune, saying in March the UK should 'not get ourselves involved in another foreign war'.
Pictured is Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who has criticised Donald Trump for breaking his promise to avoid foreign wars, blaming the conflict with Iran for the Republicans' midterm election defeat
Pictured is US President Donald Trump, whose Republican Party suffered heavy losses in the midterm elections amid criticism of his administration's handling of the eight–month conflict with Iran
At a Reform UK event in central London on Thursday, he went even further, saying: 'Absolutely it [the war] was a mistake. To try to have tactical strikes to try to, maybe not halt, but at least to slow the nuclear weapons programme, I totally agree with that.
'But would I have said to them 'Yeah, come on, let's go to war for the next eight months or three years?' No.
'That is so bizarre. Trump always said 'I was against Libya, I was against Iraq'.
'It was extraordinary that the man who came from nowhere to twice become the American President and one of the biggest reasons he got there was 'no more foreign wars', so there you are.'
Mr Farage was speaking at a press conference heralding the appointment of former RAF wing commander Angus MacIntyre as the party's new defence spokesman.
Mr MacIntyre, who resigned from the Armed Forces after 40 years to take up the post, insisted the UK should do more to support Ukraine in its four–year conflict with Russia.
However, his remarks prompted Mr Farage to repeat his controversial explanation of the causes behind Russia's invasion – a view that has previously led to claims he was being an apologist for Vladimir Putin's actions.
Mr Farage referenced the opinion of the late US foreign policy adviser Henry Kissinger regarding how NATO should respond to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, many Eastern European countries that were previously part of the pro–Soviet Warsaw Pact were granted entry to NATO.
Mr Farage said: 'Kissinger felt very strongly that when the [Berlin] wall came down, we should not expand aggressively to the east.
'Kissinger believed it was that, in many ways, that made Putin act aggressively against us.'
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