Nigel Farage: key points from Panorama interview
Nigel Farage has said the EU and Nato “provoked” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by expanding eastwards. Farage said he disliked Russian president Vladimir Putin personally but “admired him as a political operator” because of the extent of his control over Russia. He added: “We provoked this war. Of course it’s his fault, he’s used what we’ve done as an excuse”. The Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats have long accused Farage of being an apologist for the Russian president.
Farage told Robinson “Do you know what I am? I’m a fighter, I’m a warrior, I’m a campaigner”. The Reform UK leader said “I stand up against big institutions when they behave badly, whether they’re banks or out of touch bureaucracies based in Brussels, and very often, I win.”
Farage accepted that a claim he made saying the UK had moved from being the “world’s seventh-biggest exporter to the world’s fourth-biggest exporter” after Brexit referred only to services. Asked why exports in goods had not similarly benefited, Farage blamed net zero policies, saying they had “de-industrialised Britain”.
Discussing migration, Farage repeatedly said that people arriving in the UK could bring their mothers with them, which is not the case. On net zero, asked if he still believed King Charles was “an eco-loony”, Farage replied: “He wasn’t the king then, and I can’t speak ill of the monarch obviously.”
Asking about Reform’s own fiscal plans, set out this week in the party’s manifesto, Robinson seemed unconvinced by Farage’s explanations as to how the party would cut public spending enough to make mass tax cuts. Farage repeatedly pushed the idea that moving the income tax threshold to £20,000 would take the lowest paid out of the tax system and get more people off benefits and into work.
Farage defended the Liz Truss mini-budget, which at the time he called “the best Conservative budget since the 1980s”. He told the BBC interveiwer “There were a lot of things here that were pro-growth and pro-business. Some of the thinking was right, the delivery was wrong, the timing was appalling.”
The Reform leader said it was important to protect the NHS being free at the point of delivery, but failed to explain how a GP appointment is free in the French-style system he is proposing, when in France there is a €25 fee for an appointment. “It gets refunded” he said, while also saying it could be forfeit if the apporintment was missed.
Asked if Reform attracted people with vile views because of his own views, Farage called this “cobblers, absolute cobblers”, quoting Martin Luther King and saying he believed in meritocracy. Asked why he once praised Enoch Powell and criticised Rishi Sunak by saying he “doesn’t understand our culture”, Farage said this simply referred to the prime minister being “too upper-class”.
Reform has blamed a vetting company it employed for failing to check what candidates had said. But Farage appeared to play down the seriousness of many of the comments, saying: “We’ve also had an awful lot of candidates being stitched up in the most extraordinary way with quotes being taken out of context.”
Updated
Oliver Lewis, the Reform UK candidate for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr was the last to speak. He invoked the spirit of Millicent Fawcett and her phrase “Courage calls to courage everywhere”.
He said “In the words of Millicent Fawcett, who fought so bravely for the right for women to vote in our country: ‘Courage calls to courage everywhere’
“Reform respects your intelligence, and respects you to use your vote wisely. This Fourth of July, our independence day from the dishonesty and incompetence of the old parties, vote Rerform UK.”
The Green party of England and Wales were not invited to participate in the debate by the BBC, despite the fact they received more votes than Reform UK in the last Senedd election in 2021.
David TC Davies, the Welsh secretary, rather curiously seemed to use his 30 seconds to make a personal appeal to get reelected than make a pitch for Rishi Sunak to form the next government of the UK and carry on as prime minister.
This is what Davies says in his closing statement:
I believe we should never ever as politicians be afraid to discuss difficult issues. That’s why it’s important that we can talk about illegal immigration and having a policy to deal with that. That is why I was the first person to raise the concerns about trans ideology in parliament in 2017. And why I believe passionately, I believe passionately that women have the right to safe, same-sex spaces and that people who are physically male shouldn’t be competing in sports with women or sharing spaces. I also believe …
He was then cut off as his time was up. There was some rumbling of discontent and murmering in the audience as he began speaking about what he called “trans ideology”, although one, possibly two people in the 100 strong audience clapped.
Rhun ap Iorwerth says he does not doubt that Keir Starmer will become prime minister, but that Wales can send him a message.
He says:
I think most people agree that in this election, the Conservatives are gone but also that there’s no real excitement about what Labour are offering. There’s a fundamental issue of trust here to me. You need to be able to trust that our interests in Wales are being served. Keir Starmer will become prime minister, regardless of how Wales votes, and we can send him a message. One, he shouldn’t take Wales for granted. And two that we’re determined to hold him to account. Plaid Cymru will do that with our clear and positive vision for our country.
Jane Dodds, leader of the Liberal Democrats in Wales says the audience have been listening to people “from two political parties who’ve been in power for far too long.”
She says “Political parties who’ve broken the rules. They’ve lost our trust. They’ve taken Wales for granted. Labour have mismanaged Wales. The conservatives have neglected Wales. You can change that.”
Vaughan Gething, first minister, says Labour want to bring less division to politics.
He says: “People shouldn’t go to bed angry at night about the lies they’ve been told. They shouldn’t wake up in the morning worried about their shopping bill. People have the right to expect us to be cooperative and to be straight about the tough road ahead. That is what Keir Starmer and I offer to you.”
The five senior Welsh political figures in this debate are giving their closing statements. The order has been drawn by lots. They have 30 seconds each.
Oliver Lewis of Reform UK says they have no hostility to migrants, but what they care about is “the failure of the UK government control our borders property.”
He says “It’s a domestic failure of our institutions. I don’t think really the political classes has caught up with it.”
David TC Davies of the Conservatives says Labour’s policy on immigration in Wales is “to try and get people more benefits, whether it’s universal basic income, and then try and get them legal aid.”
“Shame on you” someone say. The Welsh secretary says he backs the Rwanda scheme, and also backs leaving the ECHR “if a foreign court stops us from doing something which we as a democratically elected sovereign parliament have voted to do then? Yes, of course I would. I would absolutely leave it.”
It is questionable whether the ECHR is “a foreign court” as it has Tim Eicke KC on it, who was nominated by the British government.
The format of this debate is a bit chaotic if I’m being honest. Chair Bethan Rhys Roberts is going to the audience a lot, who are asking scattergun questions on multiple questions, and then coming back to one or two of the people on the stage who get to cherrypick which bits of which questions they address.
The next question in the Wales debate is whether the debate on immigration is too negative. The audience are asked to put up their hand if they think there is too much immigration into Wales. Nobody appeared to me to put their hands up, but I’m intrigued by what extent peer pressure plays into those kinds of televised situations.
Rhun ap Iorwerth says “I don’t like the tone of the debate on immigration. We know that one party in particular wants to exploit people’s fears and anxieties.”
He doesn’t mention a party by name. Reform UK’s Oliver Lewis interrupts him to say he is being insulting.
For the Liberal Democrats Jane Dodds says: “I’ve worked with refugees over a number of years, both in this country and abroad. And really, they are people just like us. They are people desperately getting trying to get away from war-torn situations. We need safe and legal routes. That’s the first thing. We need a faster asylum process.”
Going back to Nigel Farage for a moment, he wasn’t as tetchy as the transcript appeared in places on paper, laughing off some of the most controversial things he has said in the past.
He didn’t have a good comeback to Nick Robinson pointing out that people pay for their GP visits in France, the kind of system that he is proposing, and nor did he really do anything to explain where the funding for Reform UK policies was coming from beyond saying they would take the lowest earning out of income tax and bring down net migration.
Robinson had two particualry cutting lines against him, saying “It’s always someone else’s fault” as Farage was claiming that the Conservatives hadn’t delivered economic benefits from Brexit. Farage was also told “So, you can’t run vetting but you could find £150bn in public spending savings?”
The next questions from the public in this Welsh leaders debate are about the NHS, clean rivers, and how a Labour government in Wales would be able to pressure a Labour government in Westminster for more funds for Wales.
Vaughan Gething is having a sticky couple of minutes here. There has just been a long section talking about the allegations he deleted WhatsApp messages during the pandemic, and the next question is about the controversy over donations he took during his leadership campaign.
“Give it back” some of the audience shout at him. He says he has done nothing wrong. He is reminded that he has lost the confidence of the Senedd.
Welsh leaders debate on BBC
OK, I am turning my full attention to the Welsh debate on BBC One Cymru now. I had a transcript of the Nigel Farage interview in advance. I don’t for this, as it is live, so apologies in advance for any transcribing errors. As a reminder, on the panel are:
First minister Vaughan Gething (Labour)
Welsh Secretary David TC Davies (Conservative)
Rhun ap Iorwerth (Plaid Cymru leader)
Jane Dodds (Liberal Democrats Welsh leader)
Oliver Lewis (Reform UK candidate for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr)
There is no Green party representation invited.
Updated
If you aren’t seeing that bit of Nigel Farage going “I’m a fighter, I’m a warrior, I’m a campaigner” cut into Steve Miller Band’s The Joker on your social media timelines by the end of the night I will be very surprised.
Farage: 'I’m a fighter, I’m a warrior, I’m a campaigner'
The interview ends with Nigel Farage telling Nick Robinson “Do you know what I am? I’m a fighter, I’m a warrior, I’m a campaigner. I stand up against big institutions when they behave badly, whether they’re banks or out of touch bureaucracies based in Brussels, and very often, I win.”
Asked “Are you really the man to restore trust in British politics, really?”, Farage says “That’s a very metropolitan way of putting things.”
Nigel Farage is asked about problems with Reform UK candidates. He denies he has anything to do with this. He says he has had nothing to do with the day-to-day running of the party, and that every party has a problem with candidates.
“They are not there because of me,” Farage says.
“You founded the party, you’re the president of the party, you’re the owner of the party,” Robinson retorts.
In a cutting line Robinson says “So, you can’t run vetting but you could find £150bn in public spending savings?” with a fourth-wall breaking smirk to off-camera. Although maybe he was just getting warned about time in the studio – we are very close to the end of the interview here.
Robinson puts it to Farage that the party attract people with unpleasant views because those people think he agrees with them. “They listen to some of the divisive and provocative things you’ve said over the years and say, Nigel is our guy.”
“Cobblers, absolute cobblers.”
He says the Brexit party was the most diverse in the European parliament. He says “I believe that regardless of race or religion or sexual preference, that everybody should be treated equally. I don’t believe in group rights. I don’t believe in dividing us up.”
He cites Martin Luther King Jr, who lived in the US at a time when there was legal racial segregation, saying he didn’t want his children to be judged by the colour of their skin.
Robinson suggest there is something in the fact that he describes the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, of not undertanding our culture. “You said it about a non-white politician,” Robinson says.
Farage repeats his accusation, saying Rishi Sunak “doesn’t understand our culture” and brings up his early D-day exit.
Farage, who went to Dulwich College, a fee-paying private school, says Sunak is “too upper class. Too detached. He couldn’t go down the pub and meet ordinary people.”
Nick Robinson says that Nigel Farage’s climate policies on net zero suggest he does not think there is a crisis. “I’m not arguing the science,” Farage says, but says he does think there has been “some hype” around the climate crisis, and that people have been sold fear rather than solutions.
“We spend too much time hyperventilating about the problem,” Farage says.
Nick Robinson reminds Farage he once called Prince Charles an “eco-loony”.
“Do you still think that about the king?” he asks.
Farage has actually been stridently critical of King Charles over his climate stance on multiple occasions. On his GB News show two years ago, Farage said people were being “radicalised” over the climate crisis, and criticised the then-prince for appearing on a World Economic Forum video stream, which Farage said was “another big globalist club.”
In that segment in 2022, Farage said “I worried about the hysteria that has been taught to young people from a very early age, right through school, we’re all gonna die because of global warming caused in this country … This is getting worse and worse. People are being radicalised. People are being made to be very, very fearful. They’re getting a one-sided argument and it is wrong. And I worry that if Prince Charles is king, he’ll get on pushing that agenda.”
In tonight’s interview Farage was asked “So, is David Attenborough wrong and Nigel Farage is right?”
Farage repeated “I’m not arguing the science. He wasn’t the King then, and I can’t speak ill of the monarch obviously.”
One of the proposals in the Reform UK manifesto is “a comprehensive free speech bill.”
Nick Robinson says the Reform UK manifesto is like “Christmas” and “Everybody gets everything they want”. He says it contains more spending commitments than were in manifestos from Labour under Jeremy Corbyn.
Farage says manifesto is a “horrible word”.
In trying to explain how the policy promises are costed, Farage talks about immigration, leaving the ECHR, and raising the income tax threshold so people can get back to work.
Robinson says “I’m asking you where you get £140bn a year”. He says to Farage that instead of being on I’m A Celebrity, he should have been on Fantasy Island. That was a TV series in the 1970s and 1980s were people’s downfall was usually down to their arrogance.
Farage tries to change the topic to net zero, and says Labour and Conservatives won’t even debate it.
In the debate on BBC Wales, first minister Vaughan Gething has said the country is still paying the price for the Liz Truss mini-budget that proved to be the downfall of her short tenure in Downing Street.
Liberal Democrat Jane Dodds has said a Labour government should abolish the two-child benefit cap. Plaid Cymru have demanded the same.
The Reform UK candidate on the panel, Oliver Lewis, generated some audience laughter when he declared his party was “the new Labour party” for the working classes.
The next topic is the NHS. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage says “the original concept, the one we should defend, is that the NHS free at the point of delivery.”
He again pushes his argument for an insurance system similar to the French one, saying “out of your income, some of your money goes towards an insurance policy effectively, and if you haven’t got the money, you don’t pay.”
Nick Robinson says that people have to pay €25 to see a GP in France. Farage says they get the money back. “It’s refunded.”
He says charging for appointments would end people not turning up for them. “You forfeit it.”
It is difficult to reconcile his argument that seeing the GP would be free at the point of delivery if there is a charge or refund that could be forfeit.
Home secretary James Cleverly has chipped in on Farage’s comments about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying the Reform UK leader is “echoing Putin’s vile justification for the brutal invasion.”
Just Farage echoing Putin’s vile justification for the brutal invasion of Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/2T09SPZ2Sd
— James Cleverly🇬🇧 (@JamesCleverly) June 21, 2024
Farage says Reform UK zero net migration policy is not as 'simplistic' as one in, one out
The BBC’s Nick Robinson has asked Nigel Farage to explain how Reform are intending to have “no net migration” on day one of a Reform UK government. Robinson says the party is essentially promising “one in, one out”.
“It’s not as simplistic as that,” says Farage.
Robinson presses him for details. Would health workers be able to come in. Farage claims British nurses can’t get jobs because the NHS is employing foreign nurses, calling it a “scandal”.
Robinson persists, asking “Does some new body, working for Nigel Farage say, look sorry mate, no visa for you until Bob gets his dream home in Spain?”. He cites firms trying to hire computer programmers.
Farage says if Nick Robinson got a job for CNN and overstayed his work visa, police would come and smash his door down in New York.
Robinson asks if that is what should happen here – “doors should be smashed down, people should be arrested and deported?”
This is a sharp line from Robinson: “I know what you’re cross about, but I don’t know how your system works.”
He tells Farage it is not true that people can just bring their mums over if they have a student visa. Farage insists it is. “We are so lax in this country,” he says, “you can do what you like.”
Nigel Farage says the promises in the Reform UK “contract” are not policies, but what the party will campaign on for the next five years. He denies he is trying to wriggle out of “the details”.
The first question in the BBC Wales debate has been about the cost of living crisis by the way. I’ve got half-an-ear on that too, I’ll drop some tweets as it goes along and then focus on that properly for the last half-hour after the Nigel Farage interview has finished.
“We have a leader of the Labour party refusing to lift the two-child benefit cap.”
— Jonathan T Clark (@JonathanTClark) June 21, 2024
Plaid Cymru would scrap this cruel policy and increase Child Benefit by £20 a week - directly helping 330,000 families.#BBCWalesGeneralElectionDebate pic.twitter.com/Bho5LiOjIa
Farage challenged over claim that exports are up post-Brexit
The BBC’s Nick Robinson has pressed Nigel Farage over his repeated claim that exports are up post-Brexit.
“Is trade up or down in goods?” Robinson asks. “No, it’s services that we are booming in,” says Farage.
Robinson suggests that is good news for “the city boys like you”.
Farage says “Financial services are in Bristol, Cardiff, Birmingham, Manchester.”
He says that growth doesn’t come from multinational corporations, it comes from millions of small businesses taking risks.
He blames net zero, saying “Our net zero policies have deindustrialised Britain and that’s one of the reason why we’re not exporting goods, we’re manufacturing less.”
He also accuses Rishi Sunak of failing to simplify regulation and abolishing “4,000 EU laws”. “The Conservative party never believed in Brexit,” he asserts.
Boris Johnson, one of the Leave campaign leaders, won the 2019 general election for the Conservatives on the main campaign plank of “Get Brexit done”.
“It’s always someone else’s fault,” says Robinson.
Farage: Brexit 'not a failure, but we failed to deliver'
Challenged that Brexit is a failure, Nigel Farage insists “it can’t be a failure, we’ve left the European Union, we’re now self-governing,” but says “we failed to deliver.”
Nick Robinson reminds him that he has previously said “We haven’t benefited from Brexit economically”.
Farage says the full quote is “Brexit has failed, those who voted for it believing that immigration numbers would be reduced.”
Robinson promises they will get back to immigration later in the interview.
Farage reiterates praise for Truss mini-budget: 'some of the thinking was right'
Nigel Farage is reminded that he reacted to the Liz Truss mini-budget by describing it as “the best Conservative budget since the 1980s”.
Farage laughs. The mini-budget led to a minor financial crisis.
“There were a lot of things here that were pro-growth and pro-business. The one big mistake she made, she didn’t have any cuts in spending,” Farage says. “Some of the thinking was right, the delivery was wrong, the timing was appalling.”
Incidentally there is some to-and-fro between Farage and Robinson about whether his comments came before or after the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea.
“This is the, about the same time, maybe – no, before actually, actually before,” Farage says.
The comments were reported at the end of March 2014. The Russian invasion of Crimea began on 27 February 2014.
Interviewed in GQ magazine by Alastair Campbell, Farage said “As an operator, but not as a human being, I would say Putin. The way he played the whole Syria thing. Brilliant. Not that I approve of him politically. How many journalists in jail now?”
The “whole Syria thing” is a reference to Russian support of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.
Nigel Farage says that Nato and the EU provoked the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Nigel Farage says that Nato and the EU provoked the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Asked by Nick Robinson about his comments that Vladimir Putin was the statesman he most admires, Farage tries to argue the words were taken out of context.
“This is the nonsense, you know, you can pick any figure, current or historical, and say, you know, did they have good aspects? And if you said, well, they were very talented in one area, then suddenly you’re the biggest supporter.”
Robinson says he is asking because the Reform UK manifesto implies that Farage wants to be prime minister. He is asked if he stands by his 2022 comment that the invasion “was a consequence of EU and Nato expansion.”
Farage says “it was obvious to me that the ever-eastward expansion of NatoO and the European Union was giving this man a reason to say, “They’re coming for us again,” and to go to war.”
Farage says he has been saying this since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Robinson puts it to him that he is just echoing Putin’s argument for the war.
“My judgment has been way ahead of everybody else’s in understanding this,” Farage says.
Nick Robinson’s next question to Nigel Farage is the one that has generated those headlines about him accusing Nato and the EU of provoking Russia to invade Ukraine.
Farage: 'there isn’t a right of British politics, it’s gone, disappeared'
Nick Robinson opens the interview with Nigel Farage with a question about Reform UK guaranteeing a large victory for Labour by dragging voters away from the Conservatives. He cites polling figures.
Farage argues that polls are moving in Reform’s favour during the campaign and says “we’re going to win seats, a good number of seats, but it could become a very substantial number of seats.”
As an aside, none of the MRP predictions people have been paying a lot of attention to in this campaign at the moment are anticipating Reform UK winning “a good number of seats”.
Farage then asserts that “there isn’t a right of British politics, it’s gone, disappeared” when asked if he is trying to emulate Donald Trump and come to power by taking over the right of politics.
Farage says the Tories might as well have rebranded themselves as the SDP as they are “high tax, big state” and have been damaging for people running small businesses in the country.
OK, we are about to begin: Nick Robinson interviews Nigel Farage …
In a quirk of scheduling, just before the Nigel Farage interview starts on BBC One in my region, London, it is time for a party political broadcast from … Reform UK. Scotland is getting one from the SNP. The TUV has the slot on Northern Ireland. Wales seems to have got away without one.
The lineup for the BBC One Cymru debate tonight features:
First minister Vaughan Gething (Labour)
Welsh Secretary David TC Davies (Conservative)
Rhun ap Iorwerth (Plaid Cymru leader)
Jane Dodds (Liberal Democrats Welsh leader)
Oliver Lewis (Reform UK candidate for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr)
There is no Green party representation invited.
The first half-hour of this clashes with the Nigel Farage interview which is, to be honest, sub-optimal if you want to cover both, which I had been planning to.
Another bit of the interview with Nigel Farage that the BBC has released in advance is an awkward exchange where Nick Robinson asks the Reform UK leader on his previous comments about King Charles, before he became king, that he was an “eco-loony”.
Farage, arguing against the net zero policies of the Conservatives and Labour, says that the prince had previously made “a very stupid comment” about carbon dioxide being a pollutant, but that he could not speak ill of the monarchy.
PA Media has reported that former prime minister Boris Johnson has stuck his oar into a row about whether Keir Starmer believed Jeremy Corbyn was a better option for prime minister in 2019.
Johnson, who quit as an MP in June 2023 in disgrace to avoid a suspension and potential recall petition after an investigation into the Partygate scandal found he misled parliament, has written:
It shows that we may now be only days from electing a Labour government that has simply no idea how dangerous the world is today, and how important it is that Britain is strong in the face of our adversaries.
“Unless he revokes his endorsement of a Corbyn premiership, and makes explicit his support for Ukraine, Keir Starmer is simply not fit to be prime minister,” wrote the former prime minister who was fined for attending a party that broke his own Covid rules.
On Thursday Starmer said Corbyn would have been “a better prime minister” than “what we got”.
Russia was provoked into Ukraine war, claims Nigel Farage
The BBC has issued a transcript in advance of the interview. Here is Peter Walker’s story about Farage’s comments:
Nigel Farage has said the EU and Nato “provoked” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by expanding eastwards, as the Reform UK leader was challenged over a series of policies and beliefs in a sometimes combative TV interview.
Speaking to BBC’s Panorama on Friday evening, Farage also said Brexit would have benefited the UK economically if he had been running the country, and that many of the Reform candidates criticised for saying offensive things had been “stitched up in the most extraordinary way”.
Challenged on his beliefs over the invasion of Ukraine, and his stated admiration for Vladimir Putin, Farage said he disliked the Russian president personally but “admired him as a political operator” because of the extent of his control over Russia.
On why Putin invaded Ukraine, Farage said: “I stood up in the European Parliament in 2014 and I said, ‘There will be a war in Ukraine.’ Why did I say that? 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.
Farage has long been accused by the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties of being an apologist for the Russian president.
Read more here: Russia was provoked into Ukraine war, claims Nigel Farage
If you want to get a bit of revision in before Nigel Farage’s interview tonight, you can find the Reform UK manifesto, which it is branding its “contract with you”, here.
The five opening key pledges are:
All non-essential immigration frozen to boost wages, protect public services, end the housing crisis and cut crime.
Illegal migrants who come to the UK will be detained and deported. And if needed, migrants in small boats will be picked up and taken back to France.
Still free at the point of delivery, healthcare needs reform to improve outcomes and enjoy zero NHS waiting lists.
Lift the income tax starting threshold to £20k to save the lowest paid £1,500 per year. This takes 7 million of the least well-off out of income tax to make work pay and get people off benefits.
Scrap energy levies and net zero to slash energy bills and save each household £500 per year. Unlock Britain’s vast oil and gas reserves to beat the cost of living crisis and unleash real economic growth.
Hello, and welcome to our continued coverage of the 2024 UK general election campaign. The media set piece tonight is a half hour Panorama interview with freshly installed leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage. Nick Robinson is asking the questions.
That starts at 7pm on BBC One, unless you are in Wales, in which case 7pm is the beginning of the Welsh TV election debate on BBC One Cymru. Bethan Rhys Roberts is chairing a debate with senior figures from the Welsh Conservatives, Welsh Labour, Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Liberal Democrats and Reform UK. The Green party can feel pretty aggrieved not to have been invited – they secured more votes than Reform UK at the last Senedd elections in 2021.
We will bring you the key lines that emerge. And the Netherlands v France is on at 8pm in Euro 2024, so at least all the television politics should be out of the way before then.
It is Martin Belam with you this evening. You can get in touch with me at martin.belam@theguardian.com. I’ve already done my postal vote today, so there is nothing anybody can do in the last couple of weeks of campaigning to change my choice. You may be in a different position.
