Keir Starmer blasted for 'using any excuse' to get back into the EU amid talks to join £78billion Ukraine loan

Sir Keir Starmer has been lambasted by Zia Yusuf amid talks to join the EU's £78billion loan to Ukraine, accusing him of using "any excuse" to cosy up to the Union.

Speaking to GB News, Reform UK's Home Affairs spokesman hit out at the Prime Minister's talks with the EU during a visit to Armenia.

He fumed: "Since the British public voted famously for Brexit, the political establishment, including Keir Starmer, have done a great deal to try to undermine that vote.

"MPs have basically decided that the public were wrong and they were going to look to find any excuse to try and get Britain back into the European Union by the front door or by the back door."

Mr Yusuf argued that the cost of Britain joining the loan deal will be "insignificant" compared to the cost in "absolute terms".

He said: "The billion-pound cost pales into insignificance. I think it's going to be much, much higher than that in raw absolute terms.

"And it looks increasingly like Keir Starmer now, he's always in a place where he's got nothing to lose."

The Reform spokesman took aim at the Prime Minister's dwindling popularity: "It's difficult really for him to go much further down in the polls.

"He is the most unpopular Prime Minister in history, which is a pretty astonishing thing for someone who has really only been Prime Minister for the blink of an eye, and obviously comes after horrendously unpopular previous Tory prime ministers, so that's some going."

Mr Yusuf told GB News that the opportunity of Brexit can "still be realised" under a future Reform UK Government.

He said: "The opportunity cost of all of the incredible things that Britain should have been doing, and don't forget it was the Tories, of course, that completely squandered the enormous opportunity that Brexit presented Britain and the British people.

"But the good news is that opportunity can still be realised, and if you want it to be realised, you need a Reform Government led by Nigel Farage."

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Questioned by host Alex Armstrong on whether Sir Keir should join forces with the EU on this loan for Ukraine, Mr Yusuf made clear that Reform "backs Ukraine" in their conflict against Russia.

He told GB News: "Reform backs Ukraine, we back the Ukrainian people's battle against Vladimir Putin and it is in the British interest to do so.

"Clearly, Vladimir Putin is a marauding dictator, but if you actually look at what's been happening within Ukraine, we have obviously given them a lot of our drone capacity.

"Our drone inventory has largely been completely diminished as a result of that and we simply haven't been building, we haven't been manufacturing to allow us to build those drones."

Mr Yusuf added: "So yes, we need to continue to support Ukraine and Reform supports that, but we also need to think about how we support our homeland here at home."

Warning of the growing illegal migration crisis in Britain, Mr Yusuf concluded: "I want to make a really important point here because we can talk about drones, we can talk about Navy vessels, we can talk about missiles and all sorts of things.

"But the reality is that we're still closing in on 200,000 people, most of them undocumented men turning up on our beaches uninvited, essentially an invasion of this country over the last eight years.

"MI5 have already confirmed they have foiled 20 attacks on our soil by Iranian IRGC fighters, and yet not only has Starmer not proscribed the IRGC, just like the Tories, he's happy to continue this open borders policy which is extremely dangerous to the people of Britain."