Nigel Farage, the leader of the right-wing Reform UK party, believes a “political revolution” will sweep through Europe as it did the U.S. with the re-election of President Donald Trump.
In answer to questions about controversial comments made by Vice President JD Vance during the Munich Security Conference last week, Farage told Fox News Digital in an interview he “loved every word of what he said” and argued Vance was “speaking ahead of his time.”
“He was talking to an audience of a European political class who are on the way out,” Farage said at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in London this week. “It’s a political revolution, and it swept through America. And it’s going to sweep through the rest of Europe too.”
Vance, who argued the biggest threat facing Europe was not from Russia or China, but rather from alleged government efforts to silence freedom of speech, drew international rebuke from some who argued his comments were misleading or inaccurate. Others praised his comments, including those who attended the Conservative Political Action Conference Thursday, where he was reportedly given a standing ovation.
Farage said Vance reminds him of where he was a decade ago when he served in the European Parliament and remembered “getting up and giving speeches and being screamed at and shouted at and hated.”
NIGEL FARAGE: ‘OUR COUNTRY IS CHANGING FUNDAMENTALLY’
Farage left the European Parliament in 2020 after the UK’s decision to leave the European Union under the 2016 Brexit referendum, which he ardently supported as leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP).
He then launched the Brexit Party in 2019, before renaming it Reform UK, which he told Fox News Digital has leaped in popularity over the last seven months and is “leading consistently in the national opinion polls.”
“It is quite remarkable. It’s a reflection, I think, on what we call the Uni-Party,” he added, arguing there are no differences between the UK’s Labor Party, which is currently in power under Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and the Conservative Party.
“We’re upbeat, we’re optimistic, we’ve got a good vibe, and we believe, with the right leadership, we can and will turn this country around,” he said.
According to a report by Reuters, Reform UK has just five members of parliament out of 650. But members of the party came in second place in roughly 100 races during the last election in July 2024.
The report noted the party was “benefiting from a growing anti-establishment” sentiment rising across Europe by which both far-right and far-left parties are seeing increasing support.
“We’re in societal decline,” Farage said, pointing to statistics relating to knife crime, immigration and the economy. “Now, can it be fixed? Not under this government.”
“They’re talking us into a recession. We’re in for a couple of very, very tough years, but the turnaround will come at the next election,” he added.
The U.K. has been dipping in and out of technical recessions since 2023 and has struggled to economically recover from the coronavirus pandemic, a fact that likely cost the Conservative Party its 14-year reign to the Labor Party in July.
