Nigel Farage has said MPs should look at rolling back Britain’s abortion limit from 24 weeks, in a signal that he could try to open up a debate about women’s reproductive rights.
The Reform UK leader was speaking as he unveiled the former Conservative minister Andrea Jenkyns as the latest recruit to Reform UK, announcing she would be the party’s candidate for mayor of Lincolnshire.
Responding to questions about the assisted dying bill, which he will vote against, Farage said parliament should be allowed more time “to debate things that people at home talk about”.
“Is 24 weeks right for abortion given that we now say babies at 22?” he said. “That to me would be worthy of a debate in parliament but should that be along party lines? I don’t think so.”
Heidi Stewart, the chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advistory Service, said: “Despite what anti-abortion campaigns would have MPs think, rolling back women’s hard-won rights is not what people at home are interested in.”
Louise McCudden, the head of external affairs at MSI Reproductive Choices, a sexual and reproductive health services provider,, said: “Calls to reduce the time limits are based on ideology and are not supported by clinical evidence. If MPs are going to debate anything on this issue, it should be reforming our Victorian abortion laws which leave women threatened with prison for making decisions about our own bodies.”
McCudden said the most common circumstances that MSI saw leading to an abortion at 22 weeks or later involved unexpected health risks during a wanted pregnancy and foetal anomalies, which are often not detected until 20 weeks or later.
The Labour MP Stella Creasy said: “Ninety per cent of abortions happen in this country before 10 weeks – those rare ones that do happen later are the most heartbreaking as they often involve fatal conditions that mean much longed-for children do not survive birth.”
Farage, who was bullish about his party being able to grow from its five MPs to become the official opposition in future, also told the press conference that he believed he could count on “my new friend Elon”, referring to the owner of X, Elon Musk.
Farage said he was looking forward to cuts being made to the US administrative state, which he described as a blueprint for Reform UK to follow “if things go well” at the next general election.
Jenkyns – who Farage said happened to be the 100,000th Reform member – joined the party leader on stage at a central London hotel where she said her old party was a sinking ship that was beyond salvaging.
Her decision to join Reform comes as a surprise, however, after she engaged in a bitter public row with the party earlier this year, after claiming a pro-Brexit businessman had offered her jobs to defect.
She was bitterly critical of Reform in July after an attack by the party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, who had accused her of bribing her Reform general election rival in the constituency of Leeds South West and Morley.
On that occasion, Jenkyns insisted she never came close to defecting to Reform and described Tice’s “wild accusations” as “libellous” and an attempt to “deflect from his own embarrassing behaviour”.
Asked on Thursday how long she had been thinking about defecting, she said she had “always respected” Farage and noted her work with Tice during the Brexit campaign.
“We are politically aligned. And how long have I been thinking about it? Well, I mean, I was tempted before the general election, but I am a loyal person to a party,” she said.
Jenkyns has long been a controversial figure in Tory ranks and campaigned with a picture of Farage on leaflets even while in the party.
In 2022, as a newly appointed education minister, she responded to complaints after making a rude gesture outside Downing Street by saying she had been provoked by a “baying mob”.
