Nigel Farage announces birth of first grandchild - 'A healthy boy!'
Posting on social media, the Reform UK leader said: "Starting the week on a high. My first grandchild was born yesterday evening. A healthy boy!
PA
Nigel Farage has announced the birth of his first grandchild, saying a "healthy boy" was born yesterday evening.
Posting on social media, the Reform UK leader said: "Starting the week on a high. My first grandchild was born yesterday evening. A healthy boy!"
The Reform candidate for Clacton has two daughters and two sons.
Farage will travel to Maidstone and Newton Abbott today for two campaign events today.
Posting on social media, the Reform UK leader said: "Starting the week on a high. My first grandchild was born yesterday evening. A healthy boy!
PA
He will be speaking in Maidstone from 11am, and in Newton Abbott from 7pm.
The Reform leader found himself in a social media row with former PM Boris Johnson today, after Farage appeared to suggest the West provoked Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
In an article for the Sunday Telegraph, Farage wrote: "His [Putin's] invasion of Ukraine was immoral, outrageous and indefensible.
"As a champion of national sovereignty, I believe that Putin was entirely wrong to invade the sovereign nation of Ukraine. Nobody can fairly accuse me of being an appeaser. I have never sought to justify Putin's invasion in any way and I'm not now.
"But that doesn't change the fact that I saw it coming a decade ago, warned that it was coming and am one of the few political figures who has been consistently right and honest about Russia's Ukraine war. If you poke the Russian bear with a stick, don't be surprised if he responds."
Taking to social media, Johnson wrote: "This is nauseating ahistorical drivel and more Kremlin propaganda. Nobody provoked Putin. Nobody 'poked the bear with a stick'. The people of Ukraine voted overwhelmingly in 1991 to be a sovereign and independent country. They were perfectly entitled to seek both Nato and EU membership.
"There is only one person responsible for Russian aggression against Ukraine – both in 2014 and 2022 – and that is Putin. To try to spread the blame is morally repugnant and parroting Putin's lies."
He added: "It is bizarre that the author should also suggest we now reduce our support for Ukraine, when the solution to the conflict is in fact clear – the Ukrainians need to win, and to repel Putin's invasion
"They can and they will. The problem in the last 30 years has not been western provocation but western weakness in the face of Russian aggression – a weakness exemplified by this article."
But Farage hit back at Johnson, saying: "Boris, you are a liar and a hypocrite.
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“I am glad you are no longer Prime Minister of this country.”
In his post on X, he included two newspaper articles from 2016 and 2022 headlined “Boris blames EU for war in Ukraine” and “Boris Johnson blamed EU for Russia’s 2014 attacks on Ukraine and was branded ‘Putin apologist'”.