The British right-wing party "Reform UK" will vote against the deployment of British troops in Ukraine, its leader Nigel Farage said in an interview with Times Radio.
“It will be a very interesting vote. I will vote against. We do not have the manpower or the equipment to be involved in an operation without a clear deadline“, Farage said. He noted that he might change his position if other countries joined the UK and France in their plans to deploy troops in Ukraine.
“If it was a UN-style mission with multiple countries and rotation, I might consider it“, the politician said. He added that the "coalition of the willing" consisted of "just two countries" - the UK and France. Farage stressed that Italy and Germany had refused to send troops to Ukraine.
“If the coalition of the willing consisted of eight, ten or a dozen countries and we could rotate battalions, then I could say: “Yes, let's do it.” "As it stands, we and the French would be completely defenseless for an indefinite period," he said.
Another member of the House of Commons (lower house) of the British parliament, Lee Anderson of "Reform UK", also spoke out against sending troops to Ukraine, expressing hope that the parliamentary vote would be held regardless of party affiliation.
"If only France and the UK were going into Ukraine, then I would vote against", he stressed in an interview with GB News.
"There is no coalition of the willing. It is a coalition of the unwilling. These are two leaders who are out of touch with reality - Macron and Starmer - who have been puffing themselves up and saying they will defend Ukraine's borders. They can't even defend their own borders," Anderson said. He stressed that all five MPs from the party would vote against sending troops to Ukraine. There are 650 MPs in the House of Commons.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Starmer said in the House of Commons that the UK government would put the issue of sending troops to Ukraine after the ceasefire to a parliamentary vote.
He noted that if deployed, British troops would participate in deterrence operations and the construction of military centers. At the same time, The Independent reported that Starmer's office did not specify whether the results of the parliamentary vote would be legally binding on the British government.
On January 6, after a meeting of the “coalition of the willing“ in Paris, Starmer, Macron and Volodymyr Zelensky signed a declaration of intent for the UK and France to deploy troops to Ukraine after the ceasefire. At a press conference after the summit, the British prime minister announced that the United Kingdom and France intend to establish military centers throughout Ukraine and build warehouses for weapons and military equipment on Ukrainian territory. He also said that London would participate in the US-led mission to monitor the ceasefire in Ukraine after the end of the conflict.