Nigel Farage is a Putin appeaser, says Sunak

Rishi Sunak has accused Nigel Farage of “appeasing” Vladimir Putin with his comments about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking to The Telegraph, the Prime Minister drew a parallel between the Reform leader and those who argued against a tough stance to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

Mr Farage sparked controversy last week by saying the West had “provoked” Russia with the “ever-eastward expansion of Nato and the European Union”. He later suggested peace talks should take place.

The Prime Minister said: “What he said was wrong, it was completely wrong. It plays into Putin’s hand. This is the guy who used nerve agents on British streets, he’s doing deals with North Korea. That is who we’re talking about here. This kind of appeasement is very damaging not just for our security, but the security of our allies that depend on us and it emboldens Putin further.

“I talk to Volodymyr [Zelensky, the Ukrainian president] regularly, I just saw him. I’ve spent lots of time with his team. I’ve been in Ukraine multiple times. The thought that we would somehow be withdrawing our support to them, that there are people who think that that’s a right thing to do, I think is deeply worrying.”

Mr Sunak spoke to The Telegraph with just a week left in the general election campaign and Labour still holding a 20 percentage point lead in the opinion polls.

The Tories have been challenged by the rise of Reform, which has even come ahead of the Conservatives in some opinion polls.

Senior Tories have warned that disaffected supporters switching to Reform could cost them a raft of seats and hand Labour a “super-majority” in the election.

Mr Sunak’s intervention is notable because during the election campaign, he has largely avoided strong direct criticism of Mr Farage.

In his interview with The Telegraph, the Prime Minister also addressed those voters who have become frustrated with him and his party.

He warned that they will feel buyer’s remorse if they back Labour at the general election next week and that Sir Keir Starmer’s party could be in power for “decades” if they win.

Asked to distil his message to Telegraph readers, including those tempted by Reform, about why they should vote for the Conservatives, Mr Sunak replied: “What I would say is a Labour government isn’t just something that you buy that if you decide you don’t like you can take back to the shop and return it.

“It’s going to have profound consequences for you and your family, potentially for decades if they change the system to stay in power that long. So you should think very carefully about the choice at this election because it has consequences.

“I absolutely appreciate people’s frustration with me, with our party. But this is not a by-election. This is not a referendum on the last 14 years. This is a choice about the future. And that choice has consequences for your family.”

The claim that Labour could “change the system” is an apparent reference to electoral reform.

Labour has promised to give 16- and 17-year-olds the vote although it has waved away suggestions of more radical overhauls.

The stark predictions of regret and Labour in power into the 2040s is an attempt to focus wavering voters’ minds on the realities of a Starmer government.

The Tory campaign is hoping that in the final week of the election race, they can win back voters supporting Reform as well as those considering Labour.

The popularity of Reform – which is at 15 per cent in average polls, with the Conservatives on 22 per cent and Labour on 42 per cent – is undercutting Tory hopes in many seats.

Mr Farage’s comments about Russia came in a BBC interview when he said he had warned about a possible invasion of Ukraine as far back as 2014.

Mr Farage said: “It was obvious to me that the ever-eastward expansion of Nato and the European Union was giving this man a reason to his Russian people to say, ‘They’re coming for us again,’ and to go to war.”

Challenged on the position, he said “hang on a second, we provoked this war”, adding that “of course” the invasion was Mr Putin’s “fault”.

The remarks sparked a backlash, and Mr Farage in response insisted he would “never, ever” defend Mr Putin and noted others had made similar points.

Contacted about Mr Sunak’s comments, Mr Farage responded: “Being against the Iraq and Libyan wars and predicting the Ukraine war is not appeasement. I’m horrified by what Putin has done.”

In his interview, Mr Sunak said that voters whose political views were on the Right could end up getting a Left-wing government if they backed Reform.

He said: “If you’re a conservative-oriented person, you want your taxes cut, you believe that’s the right thing for our country, I’m going to deliver that.

“You want our borders secure, net migration cut? I’m already delivering that and we’ll go further. You want a sensible approach to net zero? I’ve done that.

“You want your pension protected? I will do that. You want investment in our country’s defence and security? I’m doing that.

“And if you don’t vote for that, if you vote for anybody else, you’re going to get the precise opposite of all those things. You will be handing Keir Starmer a blank cheque to do whatever he wants.”

The argument is similar to ones often made by larger political parties about smaller parties given the nature of the country’s first-past-the-post voting system.

Labour politicians in the past have argued that voting for the Liberal Democrats or Greens could help the Conservatives win power.

Such “squeeze messages”, designed to push down support for smaller parties near the end of campaigns, are expected to be heard a lot before election day on July 4.

Mr Farage has repeatedly dismissed the political attacks, claiming it is a certainty that Labour will form the next government and voters should think about who they want opposing Sir Keir.

Interview: ‘It’s easy when you’re fighting for what you believe in’

By Ben Riley-Smith

Zooming north on a morning train to Nottingham, Rishi Sunak has turned to sugar and caffeine to keep himself going.

It is Wednesday, the 35th full day of election campaigning. The night before, the Prime Minister was busy dining with the Japanese Emperor during his state visit.

Later he will take on Sir Keir Starmer in the contest’s final head-to-head debate, pinning down his rival in front of a TV audience of millions.

There have been countless stump speeches, phone-in grillings, business visits, stop-offs for the cameras. And all the while, those immovable opinion polls show Labour miles ahead.

For a teetotaller who regularly fasts, his current breakfast – a pain au chocolat and cup of Yorkshire Tea with milk – is tantamount to falling off the wagon.

“The fasting has gone out of the window”, says the Prime Minister, admitting like much of Westminster to campaign-trail unhealthy eating. “It’s sugar the whole time.”

Even his fiercest critics conceded Mr Sunak is a workaholic. He has thrown himself into an election race that could politely be described as an uphill battle for the Conservatives.

There are hints of the intensity of that five-week contest when the Prime Minister speaks to The Telegraph: a slight croak in the throat, his usual cheeriness edged with tiredness.

What clearly comes across throughout the chat, as fields rush by outside, is that Mr Sunak is driven by the same conviction he felt two years ago when faced with a similar predicament – a certainty of the rightness of his policy proposals.

“I had exactly the same situation a couple of summers ago when I was running an election against Liz Truss [to be prime minister] and I made the same points then,” Mr Sunak says.

“People said I was behind then, why am I still going? And I did the same thing. Fought to the last day. And do you know why? Because it’s easy when you’re fighting for what you believe in and it’s as simple as that.

“I’m fighting for what I believe and what I believe is right for our country. When you’re doing that, actually, it’s easy to have the energy.”

The legacy of Ms Truss’s 49 days in Downing Street hangs over this campaign. Her misfiring mini-Budget was the moment the polls slumped into their current Tory danger zone.

Team Sunak believes he was proved right by Ms Truss’s fiscal experiment, his message that debt-fuelled tax cuts were irresponsible when inflation was running rampant proving apt.

The Prime Minister believes he too is right now on the damaging impact of Sir Keir’s proposals for Britain’s problems, feeling driven to make his arguments crystal clear to the electorate before polling day.

He urges Telegraph readers to vote Tory in strident terms: “If you vote for anybody else, you’re going to get the precise opposite of all those things [you want]. You will be handing Keir Starmer a blank cheque to do whatever he wants.

“And we know what that means. It means higher taxes, higher immigration, higher welfare, less investment in defence and an ideological approach to net zero that is just going to cost you and damage our energy security.”

There is no chance to take a Labour government “back to the shop and return it”, he warns, suggesting a tick in the Labour box could bring a red future that could last for decades.

An example comes in the form of Labour’s planning reforms. Press figures close to Sir Keir and sitting behind their belief that improved economic growth can ease difficult trade-offs on tax and spending is a plan to significantly loosen planning rules.

It is offered as the explanation for how, by the end of the decade, Labour can deliver its promises to build 1.5 million homes, double the country’s onshore wind output, triple its solar power, and improve connectivity to the National Grid.

The Prime Minister says the implications of that approach have not yet sunk in with voters, not least on the Green Belt, parts of which – such as old car parks – Labour has said it will reclassify “grey belt” to boost home-building.

Mr Sunak says: “I think it would be very damaging for the Green Belt. I think as you’ve seen from the reporting they use words like ‘concreting over the countryside’, ‘bulldozing over the Green Belt’. Those are the words that are emanating from their discussions and that should really worry people.

“That is your green space, your view, your walk, all of that just carpeted over with building that is imposed top down. Because they’ve also been clear that they will impose top-down planning targets on areas to ride roughshod over the views of local communities. I think that will change the fabric of what we think is special about our country and our countryside.”

Labour argues their changes would protect green spaces while utilising parts of the Green Belt which do not amount to the countryside, such as disused tarmacked areas.

Few specific details on how planning rules will change under Labour have been published.

The Prime Minister has tried to force focus onto the future, the policy choices that will shape voters’ lives ahead, rather than – as Labour is framing it – the election being a judgment on the past.

Mr Sunak acknowledges “frustration” with him personally as well as his party, including on the tax burden, which has risen to its highest point in 70 years after the Covid pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drove up public spending.

‘Difficult few years’

“I can,” the Prime Minister says when asked if he can understand why people are disillusioned by the Tory record on tax. “It’s been a difficult few years. But we’re now cutting taxes.”

He mentions the National Insurance cuts, which have saved a worker on the average salary £900 this year, and the “biggest tax cut to business in decades”, which was a major expansion in how companies can write investments off against tax.

The approach has been real Thatcherism, Mr Sunak insists: “I was always clear, as were Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Lawson before me, that the priority was control borrowing, get inflation down and then cut taxes. That’s what I’ve done.

“That’s what Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Lawson did. That’s what I’ve done. We’re now cutting taxes and if I’m re-elected we’re going to keep cutting taxes at every stage of your life.”

Despite the forward focus, the past cannot be fully escaped for the Tories. There are those – not least some close to Boris Johnson – who have not forgiven Mr Sunak for quitting as chancellor in July 2022, triggering Mr Johnson’s downfall.

Does he stand by that decision? At the second time of asking the Prime Minister says “yes”, but moves on swiftly: “That’s in the past. This election is about the future.”

The present, too, is proving uncomfortable for the Tory high command. The scandal about Conservatives betting on the summer election date is now widening to include police officers and even a Labour candidate who laid a wager on their own defeat.

The headlines on Wednesday morning are filled with news that Alister Jack, the Scottish Secretary sitting round Mr Sunak’s own cabinet table, placed a bet on the election date.

Mr Jack said in a statement that the bet was made way back in April and he is not being looked at by the Gambling Commission.

What did Mr Sunak make of the Jack news? “As I’ve said on this, I was incredibly angry when I first heard about allegations of people who had done something wrong, who had broken the rules and used information to their advantage,” he says.

“That undermines what everyone believes in public service, what I believe in public service. I was very angry to learn about those.”

Have all his cabinet ministers been asked if they placed a bet on the election? It would surely take just a short while for his team to carry out that due diligence.

Twice Mr Sunak does not say yes, offering instead: “The Gambling Commission have the resources and the information to conduct inquiries and decide if someone has done something wrong and broken the rules.”

The betting furore has proved another distraction – and there have been plenty during this campaign – for a politician who wants to focus on making his case.

It is clear that voter apathy is something that has alarm bells ringing at Conservative Campaign Headquarters, especially from traditional Tory voters considering staying at home.

The final week of an election campaign is often about trying to maximise turnout from your own side, which is quite a challenge for the Tories given the scale of voter disillusionment.

Mr Sunak issues a stark warning to those usually on the blue team: “If you don’t vote Conservative at this election and you vote for anyone else, or indeed you stay at home because you’re upset or frustrated, you’re going to get the precise opposite of what you want.”

In other words, that Labour “blank cheque”. It is a phrase you can expect to hear over and over in the final seven days, a “squeeze message” aimed in part at trying to tempt Reform voters back.

Before the end of the interview, pain au chocolat all gone save for a handful of crumbs, there is a chance for one more dive into the past.

The last time the Conservatives were swept out of office, in 1997, Sir John Major, then the Prime Minister and Tory leader, had quietly packed up parts of his Downing Street home before polling day ready to move out.

It was the moment when one aide, the future Tory chancellor George Osborne, realised for certain they were heading for defeat.

Has Mr Sunak made any plans for a possible departure? “I’m focussed on fighting for every vote until the last moment,” comes the response, eyes fixed for once on just the short-term future of the week ahead.

“That is my priority.”