Farage fears Trump will escalate Iran war after midterm ‘shellacking’
Nigel Farage said he worried that President Trump “will continue aggressively attacking Iran” after what he called “an absolute shellacking” in the midterms, warning of “even more serious implications for the price of oil, for inflation, for the whole western world”. Asked whether the war was a mistake, the Reform leader said: “There’s no question about it.” He was unveiling Angus MacIntyre, a former RAF wing commander, as Reform’s defence spokesman.
Mr Farage said Mr Trump had kept his promises in office except one — “he said no more foreign wars and here we are in month eight of a war with no sign of ending” — and that fuel prices “in the end has done the damage”; he said he had backed “quick tactical strikes from Diego Garcia” to slow Iran’s nuclear programme but never “war for the next eight months or three years”, and observed that “all political careers end in failure”. He has not spoken to the president since the result. Mr MacIntyre pledged to end prosecutions of serving personnel and veterans within Reform’s first 100 days; the Guardian noted his sixteen-minute speech did not mention Ukraine or Iran. Across Europe the populist right is keeping its distance: the AfD’s Alice Weidel said Mr Trump’s “broken campaign promise has now come back to haunt the Republicans”, Jordan Bardella blamed the Iran strikes’ “very heavy consequences” without naming him, Italy’s Roberto Vannacci said he “failed to live up to expectations”, and Vox’s Santiago Abascal, three weeks from Spain’s election on 29 November, said his concern was “in Spain, not in Michigan”.