A union leader slammed Nigel Farage on Monday, dubbing him a “Putin apologist fraud”.
The general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Paul Nowak, used the union’s annual conference to deliver a particularly punchy speech, which put the new MP and Reform UK leader at centre-stage.
Nowak said: “I don’t believe for one moment that most of those who voted for Reform at the last election are racist.”
The party secured a 14.3% of the overall vote share in the election, and now has five MPs in parliament.
However, he claimed: “Nigel Farage isn’t a friend of the working class, he’s a fraud.
“A public school educated, private equity loving, NHS privatising, Putin apologist fraud.”
Detailing the horrors he saw during a trip to Kyiv, Nowak said: “When I see Farage making excuses for Putin’s illegal and indefensible invasion of Ukraine, it turns my stomach.
“Congress, I’ll say it again – the far-right hate-mongers are no friends of the working class. They are not patriots, they are frauds.”
Farage, known for his right-wing views, faced backlash in June after suggesting the West “provoked” Russia’s invasion of its European neighbour by growing the EU and Nato.
He said that Western expansion gave Putin a chance to say to Russia “they’re coming for us” and a reason “to go to war”.
Farage later claimed that he was “one of the few figures that have been consistent and honest about the war with Russia”.
A Reform UK spokesman told HuffPost UK: “This outburst proves Reform is a serious threat to the Labour Party. They really are scared, and so they should be.”
Nowak also used his speech to attack the last Tory government, saying it was one of the most “right-wing, incompetent, morally bankrupt” premierships the UK has ever seen.
Recalling how many top Tories lost their seats in the general election, he said: “While I am not one to revel in other people’s misfortune, I have to say I enjoyed every single Portillo moment in the early hours of 5 July.
“It was a roll call of political failure. Goodbye and good riddance to every single one of them. Now, they may be gone, but their miserable legacy remains.”
“We know Keir Starmer and this government have the interests of working people at heart in the way that the Conservatives never did, and never will,” he said.
“But no government can put right 14 years of Tory chaos overnight, and no government can take on the job of rebuilding this country on its own.”
He said the unions planned to work with the new government to rebuild the UK.