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The Five Questions Nigel Farage is Never Asked About Brexit, Trump and Russia

As the media provides the Reform Leader with a prominent platform, Peter Jukes considers all the concerning lines of enquiry that journalists never confront him with

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With his insurgent role leading the Reform Party, Nigel Farage, is receiving even more publicity and air time. 

There are some journalists who are finally submitting the former MEP and Leader of UKIP to some more intense questioning about his policies and his track record of success – with the UK’s hard Brexit one of the most disastrous. 

But though Farage has been forced to justify his past praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin, there are much deeper questions beyond ideological support that he has to answer about his Kremlin connections, especially given the current war in Ukraine. 

Question One: Why Did Farage Lie About Meeting the Russian Ambassador?

We now know that the former Russian Ambassador to London, Alexander Yakovenko, was part of a strategic plan to disrupt Western Alliances in the run-up to the invasion of eastern Ukraine and the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. 

In the UK, Yakovenko tasked two spies to target Eurosceptics and Conservatives. Sergei Nalobin infiltrated the Conservative Party with his Conservative Friends of Russia organisation, launched in the Russian Embassy in 2012. Another official, Alexander Udod, targeted UKIP and was introduced to Farage’s confidant Andy Wigmore at its Doncaster convention in 2015. (For more on what happened with Wigmore, see question two).

Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko meeting Nigel Farage in May 2013. Photo: Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

During this time, Farage regularly appeared on the state-controlled TV service, RT (Russia Today), which apparently paid him for his services and boosted every speech he made as an MEP in the European Parliament. It also offered him his own TV show following the EU Referendum.

Given these connections, why did Farage protest in June 2018 that “I’ve never met the Russian Ambassador”? 

The Russian embassy website hosted a picture of Yakovenko greeting Farage in May 2013 – the moment that Russian policy pivoted over to its plan to disrupt the EU, before invading Ukraine. 

In 2019, Yakovenko was recalled to Moscow, awarded the prestigious Alexander Nevsky medal by Putin, and appointed head of the diplomatic school. At a celebration dinner, Yakovenko is reported by a foreign diplomat present to have said: “We have crushed the British to the ground. They are on their knees, and they will not rise for a very long time.”

What is it about meeting the Russian Ambassador that caused Farage to lie?

Two: How Could Farage Not Have Known About Arron Banks’ Multiple Visits to the Russian Embassy During the Brexit Campaign?