![](https://sp-ao.shortpixel.ai/client/to_webp,q_glossy,ret_img,w_2444,h_1272/https://essex-tv.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Farage-migrant-workers.jpeg)
04 Jun NIGEL FARAGE STANDING AS AN MP ‘MAKES NO DIFFERENCE’ TO LABOUR, SAYS PAT MCFADDEN
NIGEL Farage standing for election as an MP “makes no difference” to Labour’s plans, according to the party’s National Campaign Co-ordinator.
Pat McFadden told GB News: “Our reaction was just get on with the job, keep going. It’s an election anyone’s entitled to stand, anyone’s entitled to be a candidate if they put themselves forward. It makes no difference to us.
“We’re just going to keep on focusing on the voters that we need to win in all these battleground seats. That’s been our focus in recent years.
“We’re offering them a changed Labour Party, we think we’ve got a good programme to turn the page on the Conservative years and that’s what we’re going to keep talking about between now and polling day.”
On the party’s lead in the polls, he said: “I ignore them and I tell the Labour Party staff and volunteers and all our candidates ignore them, because one simple fact is true.
“No one has voted in this election. Not a single seat has been won or lost and it’s for the people to decide.
“So, no matter what the polls say, we’re going to keep on working to win the people’s support at the election on the 4th of July and the question will be, do people want to have five more years of what they’ve had for the past 14 years or is it time for a change with Labour? That remains the question wherever the polls say.”
Asked about the party’s plans for energy security, he said: “It’s very important because the experience of the last couple of years showed two things.
“One, when we’re vulnerable to global oil and gas markets, it can be very expensive for individual households, and everybody watching knows what’s happened to their energy bills in recent years.
“But secondly, it’s a vulnerability for the country. We can’t just think about energy policy as energy policy anymore. It’s got to be thought about as part of our national security.
“This drive for homegrown renewable power will be cheaper for people in the long run because renewable power is now cheaper than oil and gas.
“It will take money off people’s bills, but it’s also a matter of national security because the chances of another price spike are out there.
“We live in a very unstable world and when the next one comes, we want to be in a better, stronger place to face it than we were two years ago.”