Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper has launched an extraordinary attack on Nigel Farage over reports that he met officials from Donald Trump’s administration earlier this year, accusing him of conspiring with “anti-abortion campaigners” and plotting to roll back women’s rights. The meeting, held in London and reported by the New York Times, involved Farage and a delegation from the US State Department and was brokered by the Alliance for Defending Freedom (ADF).
Cooper’s response has been theatrical, portraying a routine political conversation as something sinister and even demanding that the government summon the US ambassador to explain what she called “a blatant attempt to interfere in the UK’s domestic laws.” She insisted that Farage “come clean” about the meeting and suggested that Reform UK would seek to weaken abortion legislation if it gained power. The Liberal Democrats, she said, would fight any attempt to “turn Trump’s America into Farage’s Britain” and reverse what she described as decades of progress.
Her rhetoric, however, seems wildly out of proportion to the facts. Farage has made it clear that abortion is hardly a priority for his party, calling it “No. 468” on Reform UK’s agenda and pointing out that he has “hardly ever spoken about it in 30 years”. He also dismissed claims that he is secretly plotting to change abortion law, telling a reporter who suggested otherwise that she was “talking utter bollocks”.
Farage’s only substantive comment on the matter was to highlight the obvious contradiction in British law: that enormous sums are spent saving babies born at 22 weeks while the abortion limit remains at 24. “Maybe we need to rethink all of that because there is clearly a legal inconsistency,” he said.
This measured point – shared by many medical professionals and ethicists – was seized upon by Cooper as evidence of a hidden agenda. Yet the facts tell a different story. The group accused of brokering the meeting, Alliance Defending Freedom, has denied any involvement and stressed that it is a non-partisan human rights organisation focused on free speech and religious liberty. The US embassy likewise confirmed that meeting people from across the political spectrum is standard practice.
Cooper’s alarmist outburst illustrates how deeply some politicians fear even the mildest questioning of Britain’s abortion laws. Rather than engage with Farage’s point about viability and legal consistency, she has chosen to caricature him as a threat to women’s rights.
SPUC thinks that the unborn baby shouldn’t be cannon fodder for Daisy Cooper to make clearly unsubstantiated political points. 10 million babies have been lost to abortion in this country. That’s far more severe than temporary partisan squabbles.
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