Jonathan Reynolds slammed Nigel Farage’s Reform UK this morning, promising the new government “will come” for the party.
On BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the business and trade secretary was pressed over the populist party’s sudden rise in the general election after Reform took a 14.3% share of the overall vote.
For the first time ever, the party now has four MPs in parliament – and Farage has said Reform will be coming after Labour.
Asked what that could mean for the party, the newly appointment minister said: “We’ve got an outstanding mandate, but of course we will take seriously and analyse those results.
“I did meet in this election good people who were telling me they were thinking about voting Reform.
“That doesn’t mean Reform are good people.”
He continued: “When you’re able to tell people look this is what they believe, they support the economic policies of Liz Truss, they support the economic policies of Vladimir Putin, people are horrified.
“A party like Reform – now it has members of parliament – will come under the kind of scrutiny it maybe always should have come under.
“And they will find that very difficult. And we will come for them – we will tell people what their agenda would mean for their economic security, their national security.
“And we will relish that argument because we know we’re in the right place and a party like Reform is frankly not.”
Presenter Laura Kuenssberg asked Reynolds if he therefore thinks they are “not good people” as he had hinted at.
He replied: “I think people who voted Reform are good people, often didn’t know the full agenda of Reform.
“I’ve got to be frank, backing the Kremlin’s position in Ukraine is not in the national interest of the United Kingdom.”
Farage has previously been met with backlash after claiming the West provoked Russia into war with Ukraine.
However, he has denied ever defending Vladimir Putin, telling supporters on his campaign trail last month: “I would never, ever defend Putin and I think his behaviour in Ukraine and elsewhere has been reprehensible.
“But if we’re going to think towards a peace at some time in the not too distant future, perhaps it might be helpful to understand what went wrong in the first place.”