Reform UK leader says PM is ‘out of touch, out of date, with all sorts of bizarre ideas’
Nigel Farage speaking at a press conference on Monday in Kent (Image: Getty)
Nigel Farage has branded Andy Burnham a “liar” after furiously rubbishing the Prime Minister’s bombshell claim that Russia influenced the Brexit referendum. The Reform UK leader’s comment comes a day after the Prime Minister told a podcast interview it was “clear” that Russia had interfered in the 2016 Brexit referendum.
But when Mr Farage was asked whether Mr Burnham’s claim “tainted the result”, Mr Farage replied: “The Prime Minister is a liar.” He added: “There was no Russian interference, and the Russia hoax has run all the way through this. And I particularly have to mention my friend and supporter Aaron Banks, who was severely libelled over this, but in the end, I’m pleased to say, won in the High Court.
“This is Burnham. This is an out-of-touch, out-of-date Andy Burnham, with all sorts of bizarre ideas.”
The Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “We do think the result of the referendum was legitimate.”
Mr Burnham, who is set to give a Commons statement on Monday, told The Rest Is Politics podcast that the UK and its allies had been “too much on the back foot” when confronting Russian interference and “haven’t informed people sufficiently about the extent to which people are seeking to disrupt the political process from overseas”.
But speaking to Times Radio on Monday, Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty declined to provide details on what form Russian interference took in 2016 and whether it was successful.
He said: “I’m not going to get into the specifics of Russia’s actions against the UK, but what is clear is that Russia is attempting to interfere in democratic processes, not just in the UK but across Europe.”
Mr Doughty added that Russia was spending £1.5billion on disinformation this year and called for a “whole of society effort” to respond to the threat Moscow poses to British democracy.
Asked whether interference could have changed the result of the 2016 referendum, he said: “The result is the result, and I think the Prime Minister has been very clear that he’s talking about attempts to interfere.
“The security minister has spoken about this before. I’m confident that both the British people and the British state are able to respond to and defend against these types of threats, but we need to be very honest that those threats exist.”
Later, Mr Doughty told LBC he did not think Russia’s attempts to interfere in the referendum had been successful.
Mr Burnham is expected to tell MPs in the Commons that it would be a “dereliction of duty” not to seek a new deal with the EU.
It is understood that he will reiterate his argument from the Labour Party conference that Brexit has done “more harm than good”.