It turns out Farage hasn’t put his name forward to ask a question for months
Nigel Farage made a song and dance this week about not getting to ask questions at Prime Minister’s Questions.
In ‘protest’, the Reform leader took a seat in the public gallery during PMQs on Wednesday.
Farage’s stunt was widely mocked, with critics accusing him of wanting to be “the centre of attention”. It was also noted that Farage has failed to show up for PMQs on several occasions in the past.
As PMQs started on Wednesday, Farage posted on X: “Every week at PMQs I am attacked by the PM and Labour MPs, but have no right of reply. I am just a mere spectator.
“So I have decided to spectate from the public gallery today instead.”
In reality, according to reporting by The Mirror, the reason that Farage hasn’t been called to ask a question is because he hasn’t asked for one.
As leader of a minor party, Farage gets questions allocated to him by the speaker on a rota basis, shared with other small parties like the Greens and Plaid Cymru.
However, as a sitting MP, Farage can also enter his name into a ballot called the ‘shuffle’ for a chance to ask a question. Each week, 15 MPs are selected to ask a question from the ‘shuffle’.
Documents seen by The Mirror show that the last time Farage entered the ‘shuffle’ was before PMQs on 9 July.
There have been five PMQs sessions since then. In theory, this means he could have been called to ask a question in any of these sessions.
Lib Dem chief whip Wendy Chamberlain told The Mirror: “This is classic Farage, all grievance and no graft. He’d rather play the victim instead of doing his job. He apparently doesn’t have any questions for the Prime Minister, but I suspect the people of Clacton have some questions for him.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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