Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said he feared further US military action in Iran will worsen the cost of living. (Alamy)
3 min read05 November
Nigel Farage has said he fears Donald Trump will continue to attack Iran in response to heavy losses for his Republican Party at the US mid-term elections.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, the Reform UK leader described the results across the Atlantic as a “disaster” for the Republicans and an “absolute shellacking”.
Asked how he thinks Trump will respond, Farage said: “I suppose I worry that the President will continue aggressively attacking Iran. That worries me because that would have even more serious implications for the price of oil, for inflation, for the whole Western world.”
He added that while he supported the initial US decision to attack the “dreadful” regime in Tehran and its nuclear weapons development, he “never supported endless war” in the region.
Farage, who describes himself as a friend and ally of Trump and who has campaigned for him in the past, admitted his pre-polling day prediction that the midterms wouldn’t be as bad for the US President as forecast was wrong.
“Over the years I’ve made many big calls on politics. I’ve got many more right than I’ve gotten wrong. When I get them right, mainstream media won’t even give me a mention. I got this wrong.
“I believed that [Elon] Musk’s big money and the tech they’d applied and get-out-the-vote would stem the flow of the losses. I was wrong, and it was a complete wipeout, an absolute shellacking for the Republicans,” he said.
He blamed historic Republican losses on Trump breaking his promise not to take the US into foreign war.
“One thing about Trump, he always kept his promises, said to the American people: ‘I will do this’. He did it. But in this case, he said: ‘no more foreign wars’. And here we are, in month eight of a war, with no sign of ending. And that, and the resulting fuel prices, in the end has done the damage,” he told journalists.
However, the Reform leader said that the Republicans could still win the next US presidential election, which will take place in 2028, despite the scale of their losses to the Democrats this week: “You’re angry with the President for what he’s done, but it doesn’t mean you won’t vote Republican in 2028.”
The Democrats have taken control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives after pulling off major victories in a number of traditionally Republican states, including Kansas, South Carolina and Texas.
The Trump administration’s war in Iran and its impact on prices was seen as the key issue for voters in the US when they went to the polls.
Responding to the results on social media platform Truth Social on Wednesday, Trump suggested the Republicans would have won a “landslide” if he had been on the ballot instead of Republican candidates.
“I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” posted Trump.
Reacting to the results on Wednesday, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the results presented an opportunity for the world to focus on ending the Iran war and tackling the cost-of-living pressures it has created worldwide.
“I think people want to see the world coming together, and focusing on the things that matter to people. And that’s what the voters, in my view, are saying in the United States,” he said.