Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has said Labour “must take Britain’s national security more seriously” in the wake of the apparently foiled terror attack at RAF Fairford.
He told GB News: “I am not in the least bit surprised by it. I have been arguing and warning for years that the IRGC and other subordinates that it has, that are active in this country should have been proscribed many, many years ago.
“And then, earlier on this year, I raised, in Prime Minister’s questions and in questions with the Home Secretary, the fact that I was given intelligence that the Iranian regime were using the small boats in the Channel to get their operatives into Britain, spies and potential terrorists.
“For my trouble, I had the Labour backbenches shouting “Shame on you!’ Now I also know that over the last few months, there’s been a massive intelligence operation going on, led by counter-terrorism, looking at Iranian nationals living in Britain because they feared a bomb plot, and the proof of that is, of course, the president of America saying we knew this was coming, we knew this was coming.
“So the authorities have known for some time that there was a very, very major threat. I have said repeatedly that we have to declare a national emergency when it comes to the channel, when it comes to illegal immigration, we become a soft touch for potential terrorists to come into Britain.”
On Labour’s plan to introduce new safe routes for asylum seekers, Farage said: “You can talk about legal safe routes. The fact is, there are certain countries in the world that pose far greater risks of violence and terrorism than other parts of the world, and it’s about time the British government started to take Britain’s national security more seriously.”
He added: “Look, point is, if you open up legal safe routes to Palestine, for argument’s sake, as Shabana Mahmood was saying yesterday, if you do that, you then automatically open the door for the partner to come, for children to come, for elderly parents to come. Before you know it, not only have the numbers increased…
“Right at this moment in time, given what’s happened at Fairford, given the massively increased risk to national security that I’ve been highlighting for years, especially in the last few months, we have to put national security above everything else.”
