Prime Minister Keir Starmer has savagely ridiculed Nigel Farage for being on holiday while Parliament is still sitting causing MPs from across the house to burst out laughing
Keir Starmer has savagely ridiculed Nigel Farage for being on holiday while Parliament is still sitting.
The Prime Minister said the Reform UK leader was “first through the e-gates”, with a nod to the Government’s recent UK-EU deal which will allow British holidaymakers to use e-gates when visiting the bloc. Mr Farage has fiercely criticised Mr Starmer’s new deal, who called it a “betrayal of Brexit”.
The PM made the dig in response to a question from Mr Farage’s colleague. Speaking at PMQs the Reform UK MP Lee Anderson said: “This Prime Minister keeps telling his gullible backbenchers over there that he’s deported 24,000 people from this country since he came into power.
“But he won’t say who these people are. Now it’s my guess that they are people who came on work visas, students, and they are simply overstaying their visas.
“But I’m willing to be proved wrong if he can answer one simple question: how many of these people deported are failed asylum seekers who have come over on small boats?”
The PM replied: “I’m very proud we’ve removed over 24,000 people. That’s the highest record for nearly 10 years.”
In a brutal slapdown of Nigel Farage, which even provoked laughter among Reform UK MPs, he went on: “It’s very good he’s standing in for the member for Clacton (Mr Farage) – there was no sign of him yesterday. He was the first through the e-gates somewhere to the south of France. Nice work if you can get it.”
Yesterday Mr Starmer criticised Mr Farage’s absence during a statement in the Commons on the new EU deal. He hit out at political leaders of opposition parties for their lack of support of the UK-EU trade deal, telling the Commons: “I wonder whether that long list of businesses coming out to support this deal will temper the reaction of the Leader of the Opposition (Kemi Badenoch) in her response.
“But then again, for weeks now, she has been dismissive of the benefits of any trade deal, in defiance, frankly, of her party’s history.
“But it’s not just them. It’s also the member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) – who is not here – the member for Kingston (Sir Ed Davey), who have both shown in their own ways, that their parties simply do not care. And if your whole approach to our allies is about striking a pose, then you don’t get to strike a deal.”
It emerged last night that Mr Farage had swanned off on holiday instead of attending the EU deal debate. The Tories branded him a “part time leader” and slammed him for “sunning himself in Europe” while the Commons was sitting.
And a Labour spokesman said: “Nigel Farage clearly cares so passionately about this issue he’s decided he can’t get up from his sunbed to represent his constituents or his party.
READ MORE: Join our Mirror politics WhatsApp group to get the latest updates from Westminster
