NIGEL Farage and Liz Truss are accepting the “far-right Reichsmark”, Humza Yousaf has said.
Both the Reform UK leader and the former Tory prime minister are attending the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in the US, where Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon appeared to throw a Nazi salute on Thursday.
Telling the crowd to “fight, fight, fight”, Bannon raised his right hand into the air with his palm flat in a gesture widely interpreted as a fascist salute – akin to but not as clear as the ones which Elon Musk threw at Trump’s inauguration rally in January.
The gesture led France's far-right National Rally leader Jordan Bardella to cancel his speech at CPAC.
Steve Bannon, after calling for Trump to be President for life, did a Nazi salute on stage at CPAC. Nazism has officially taken over the GOP. The few remaining conservatives have a choice: either leave the party and obstruct it—or choose to be complicit.pic.twitter.com/94o5Kj69Le
— Joshua Reed Eakle 🗽 (@JoshEakle) February 21, 2025
"Yesterday, while I was not present in the room, one of the speakers out of provocation allowed himself a gesture alluding to Nazi ideology. I therefore took the immediate decision to cancel my speech that had been scheduled this afternoon," Bardella said in comments reported by France24.
On Saturday, former first minister Yousaf called out Truss and Farage for continuing to take part in the event.
Sharing a story about Bardella pulling out of the event, Yousaf wrote: “What does it say about where Britain is heading when the far-right in France deem CPAC too extreme, but our former PM Liz Truss and Reform leader Nigel Farage are happy to attend and presumably take the CPAC dollar (or should that be Reichsmark given the Nazi salutes on display)?”
The Reichsmark was the currency used by Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany.
On Bannon's fascist gesture, Yousaf said: "Apparently, this isn't a Nazi salute, and when Musk did it, he was just doing the hokey cokey.
"You must reject the evidence of your own eyes.
"Bannon is right, though, we must fight. Fightback against Nazis wherever we see them, confront the far-right don't appease them."
When Farage spoke at the CPAC event, he praised the neo-Nazi-supporting Tesla chief executive Musk as a “hero”.
Farage said: “I think he is a hero, because if you remember 2020, in November, you couldn’t say anything about the conduct of the election in this country.
“You then couldn’t say anything about vaccines or about lockdowns without social media closing you down.
“And then along came the hero of free speech, Elon Musk.”
Musk himself appeared on the CPAC stage shortly afterwards, but made no mention of the Reform leader.
In her speech, Truss painted a critical picture of the UK, telling her American audience: “Britain is in the dark ages.
“We have a socialist Government, commissars ruling over us who are leading our country in a terrible direction.”
Echoing far-right rhetoric amplified by Musk and Trump, Truss said she would take on a “deep state” that “legacy media” refused to scrutinise.
“That’s why we are going to be establishing a new, free speech, media network in conjunction with our American allies, including the great people here at CPAC.
“It will be uncensorable, uncancellable, it will take on the Britain Bashing Corporation, which is what we call the BBC, it will take on [Keir] Starmer and his socialists, and it will take on the censors of Germany.”
Truss and Reform UK have been approached for comment.
