Thursday, June 20, 2024

Fact Checker

Fact check: Nigel Farage slammed over World Economic Forum membership lie
Today
Left Foot Forward 

'You can’t cancel our membership, we aren’t members, you absolute melt'



The Reform UK leader has been called out for sharing false information on social media in an attempt to gain support and whip up paranoia about global organisations.

Nigel Farage is at the forefront of the full-on culture war assault in politics, as he pushes his idea of patriotism and “Reclaiming Britain” which received its own full page in the Reform’s manifesto, I mean contract.

The former leader of UKIP and the Brexit Party has used this narrative to attack international organisations, such as the European Union and now the World Economic Forum. He previously blamed the fall-out from the Liz Truss government on a “globalist attack”.

On Wednesday, Farage claimed on X: “Reform UK will reject the influence of the World Economic Forum and cancel Britain’s membership of it.”

The proposal received support from his followers, however, it also got completely shredded for being utterly untrue. Many social media users hit back with the fact that the UK can’t cancel its membership, because it’s not even a member.

BBC Verify journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh wrote on X: “The UK is not a member of the World Economic Forum, nor is any other country on earth.”

Broadcaster James O’Brien responded to Farage: “Britain is not a member of the World Economic Forum. The man’s a joke. But make no mistake, plenty of conspiracy theorists & other idiots will lap this up…”

Otto English on X wrote: “Maybe if he put the pints down for a moment he’d be able to do a bit of research.”

Another X user wrote: “You can’t cancel our membership, we aren’t members, you absolute melt.”

One former diplomat attempted to clear it up for Farage: “The World Economic Forum’s “members” are private sector firms. You see the list here: https://weforum.org/partners/

“The WEF invites Heads of State and Government to attend Davos, but most send a Minister instead, who uses it as a convenient way to take a bunch of side meetings.”

Last week Farage was laughed at after telling the audience during ITV’s election debate that he “always told the truth.”


Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward

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