Nigel Farage has been slapped down by Laura Kuenssberg over one of the key claims he made before the UK voted to leave the European Union a decade ago.
The then Ukip leader claimed Turkey was being “fast-tracked” into the EU as he tried to persuade British voters to back Leave in the 2016 referendum.
But 10 years on, Turkey is still no closer to becoming a member of the bloc.
On Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg on BBC1, Farage was confronted about his erroneous claim – but insisted he had been telling the truth.
Kuenssberg told him: “You said that Turkey was being ‘fast-tracked’ into the EU. That wasn’t the case. It’s not happened. The prime minister said at the time it wouldn’t happen and that the UK could stop it. That wasn’t right, was it?”
Farage, now the leader of Reform UK, replied: “Yes it was and we’ve been paying Turkey billions in pre-accession aid for many, many years.”
The presenter told him again: “It wasn’t being fast-tracked.”
But Farage said: “It was an ambition of the European Union to get Turkey in as quickly as possible. It hasn’t come to that because Turkey is far less stable than it was , but it was absolutely true.”
Kuenssberg replied: “It wasn’t true that they were being fast-tracked into the European Union. That was very clear at the time. It wasn’t true.”
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