Your support helps us to tell the story
The Liberal Democrat chief whip has questioned the commitment of Nigel Farage and Lee Anderson to their roles as MPs.
At the party’s autumn conference in Brighton, Wendy Chamberlain suggested constituency work appeared not to be the priority for the Reform UK MPs, both of whom host shows on GB News.
Months after it was revealed Mr Farage was the highest-paid MP outside of parliament, with a £98,000-a-month GB News gig, Ms Chamberlain backed potential plans to stop MPs hosting shows outside parliament.
And speaking to The Independent at her party conference, Ms Chamberlain said: “The saddest thing of all is communities like Clacton and Ashfield are the ones that actually need the most assiduous constituency MPs to get underneath the casework.
“It suggests [where] your priorities are, if you are earning more from doing that kind of stuff (TV) than you are as a constituency MP… I’d be interested to know what the constituency experiences are to date.
“You just need to look at Nigel Farage’s record in the European Parliament, he was doing more outside it than inside.”
In response, Mr Farage, who was in Chicago on Friday in this third visit to the US in just over two months, told The Independent: “I don’t know whether she goes on holiday.
“I have not this year but I am fulfilling diary commitments. We are making good progress in Clacton.”
Asked what Sir Keir Starmer’s government needed to do to halt the rise of Reform before the next election, Ms Chamberlain said he had to “deliver on a fundamental and basic level”.
Reform won five seats at the general election, but had a 14.3 per cent share of the vote - higher than the Lib Dems, which received a 12.2 per cent share.
Ms Chamberlain’s comments came on the second day of the Liberal Democrats’ autumn conference, with Sir Ed Davey promising the Lib Dems “will hold [the Government] to account” when they disagree, adding that the party believes there needs to be “reform and investment” in the health service.
Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, Sir Ed said his party “absolutely will challenge the Government where we disagree with them”, and pledged to be a “better opposition than the Conservatives”.
He later added: “We’re worried that in the NHS debate, they’re talking about reform before investment, when we think there needs to be reform and investment.
“So we will hold them to account, but we will be different from the Conservatives because being constructive means you have a different tone.”
