“Every week at PMQs I am attacked by the PM and Labour MPs, but have no right of reply,” moaned Reform leader Nigel Farage on, inevitably, X today. “I am just a mere spectator. So I have decided to spectate from the public gallery today instead.”
Hence poor Nigel took his seat among the hoi polloi on the benches of the public gallery, alongside Arron Banks, the Brexiteer businessman who funded Leave.EU and narrowly lost in the West of England mayoralty election for Reform earlier this year.
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The move drew fawning headlines from Farage’s client media, with Rats in a Sack’s Spectator opposite number Steerpike describing a 61-year-old man throwing a strop and sitting in a different seat as “an innovative stunt” and “a nice symbolism for Farage and his ‘parliament versus the people’ shtick”. The Daily Express’s Katie Harris, meanwhile, dubbed Farage’s slight change of vantage point a “furious PMQs protest”, while his employer GB News called it a “shock PMQs protest”.
All of which is a reminder that Farage does indeed have a “right to reply” in his nightly GB News programme for which he has been paid £413,360 since being elected MP for Clacton. That is a pulpit not afforded to any of the other 649 MPs in the House.
As a matter of fact, Farage has had six questions at Prime Minister’s Questions since being elected, while Richard Tice, his deputy, and his other MPs have also asked questions of Keir Starmer – not a bad rate for a party with 0.77% of all Members of Parliament.
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