An evidence session to the House Judiciary committee descended into a furious row between Farage and Democrat member Hank Johnson of Georgia, who claimed Farage was “carrying water” for Elon Musk
Nigel Farage was accused of badmouthing Britain in the US to ‘impress tech bros’ who might fund his bid to become Prime Minister.
An evidence session to the House Judiciary committee descended into a furious row between Farage and Democrat member Hank Johnson of Georgia, who claimed Farage was “carrying water” for Elon Musk.
And he accused him of considering Donald Trump to be his “mentor” – something Farage denied.
“You’re trying to curry favour with Elon Musk, aren’t you?” Mr Johnson asked him in the committee hearing.
Farage responded: “Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.”
Mr Johnson claimed Farage would need cash to fund his political ambitions, and had agreed to give evidence in order to influence Trump-backing US tech firms – like Musk – to fund others.
But Farage insisted he had fallen out with Musk, who now “is abusive of me every single week, but it’s a free country.”
“It’s not about the prior disputes,” Mr Johnson said.
“You’re trying to ingratiate yourself with the tech bros.
“What you’re arguing is that the citizens of Great Britain should pay a tariff if these tech companies are not allowed to violate the laws of Great Britain.”
In his statement to the committee, Farage said American citizens should be immune from UK hate speech and online safety laws, and that Trump should threaten to use “trade levers” to impose this policy on the world.
At PMQs this afternoon, Keir Starmer accused Farage of trying to “lobby the Americans to impose sanctions on this country, which will harm working people.
“You cannot get more unpatriotic than that. It’s a disgrace.”
Farage claimed in the committee this was “a falsehood put out by the UK Prime Minister.”
Earlier in the session, Farage was branded a ‘far-right politician”, who leads a “fringe party.”
Democrat ranking member Jamie Raskin also said he was a “Putin-loving free speech imposter” and a “Trump sycophant”.
He said: “Mr Farage seems most at home with the autocrats and dictators of the world.”
“To the people of the UK who think this Putin loving free speech imposter will protect free speech, come over to America and see what Donald Trump is doing in this country,” Mr Raskin said, ahead of Farage’s evidence.
“You might think twice before you let Mr Farage make Britain great again.”
Farage said he wanted to bring Lucy Connolly to Washington DC as “living proof of what can go wrong” with free speech.
The Reform UK leader, in his evidence to the US House Judiciary Committee, raised the arrest of Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan for his comments on social media about trans people, and the jailing of Connolly for stirring up racial hatred against asylum seekers in the aftermath of the Southport murders last year.
“It doesn’t give me any great joy to be sitting in America and describing the really awful authoritarian situation that we have now sunk into,” Mr Farage said.
Of Connolly’s social media post that lead to her guilty plea and imprisonment, he said: “It was intemperate, it was wrong, but she removed it three-and-a-half hours later. Sentenced to 31 months in prison. She’s now out, having served 40% of the time.
“I wanted to bring her with me today as living proof of what can go wrong.
“Sadly, the restrictions that have been put on her banned her from making the trip, which is a very, very great shame.”