Local Elections

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Nigel Farage

Thursday 4th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Farage (Clacton) (Reform)]

I could scarcely believe it last year when the county council elections in Essex and elsewhere were postponed for a year. Clearly there is no reason at all why they cannot go ahead in 2026—although, I know that the local Conservative administration is fiercely opposed to that. The whole local government reorganisation is a dog’s dinner, and the public do not understand what is going on. You are asking people in Clacton to vote in local elections year after year after year. You are telling them that you are going to get rid of a district council that they know, understand and respect, and replace it with a pretty amorphous unitary authority. If that is going to go ahead—I do not like it, but clearly it is—you need a senior elected figure—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has used the word “you” three times. I am not imposing or cancelling elections anywhere.

[Nigel Farage]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. The point of urgent questions is that they need to be short. The Liberal Democrat Front-Bench spokesperson also had limited time. Please can Members make their questions succinct, and can the Minister make her answers succinct too?

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Nigel Farage

Committee of the whole House
Monday 20th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. When the hon. Gentleman says “you”, he is referring to me. Perhaps he would refer to the Minister as “the Minister”.

[Nigel Farage]

When the Americans realise that, actually, Mauritius is not a trustworthy nation—it is bankrupt; it needs the money; it will not honour this treaty—we will be in a very different place. I do ask the question about the role of our National Security Adviser, somebody very much in the news in the last few days. He was seemingly very happy that a trial against two alleged Chinese spies, operating at times within this building, had disappeared. Not only is he honouring the Labour manifesto, which is very soft on China, but apparently he is very for this Chagos deal.

I put it to Members that this deal is un-British, it is against our national interest, and there is no upside or gain. I can assure them that a future that a future Reform Government will not honour this treaty—end of.

[Graham Stuart]

I refer the Committee to my interests, having observed the Mauritian elections last year as a guest of the Mauritius Labour party.

It is hard not to feel a little bit sorry for the beleaguered Minister at the Dispatch Box today, sent to defend something that is so clearly a betrayal of this country and its interests. Out of the grand total of 400-plus Labour Members of Parliament in this House, he was backed by just one—the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey)—who sat with his face glued to his iPad, reading the words put there by Lord knows who, and who struggled so much when he finally took an intervention and had to speak off the cuff. Indeed, he has fled now, doubtless to lick his wounds. Not one single other of those 400 Government MPs wanted to come here and defend this Bill.

The Minister is in fact a decent man, and he will know that this Bill has no defence and brings no benefit to this country. Last week, too, we had a Minister sent out to answer for the China spy case. He had never spoken at the Dispatch Box before; it was his very first outing, but he was thought the best person to defend the Prime Minister’s blushes by knowing nothing about the topic in hand and denying things—without lying—by dint of ignorance. It was indeed a triumph, of sorts.

Armando Iannucci and “The Thick of It” cast could not script something as cynical, empty and damaging as this Government’s behaviour in so many spheres. As we can see in the amendments and new clauses before us, which will doubtless all be rejected by the Minister, amidst the betrayal of first-time buyers, farmers, small businesses, special needs children, pensioners, young workers—