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Nigel Farage defended his previous comments on the Salisbury poisoning.

The Reform leader said the Tory Government had jumped the gun by blaming Moscow.

But Mr Farage said: “I didn’t know what happened. There was a poisoning.

“Do I think Putin’s a monster? I think he proves that with every single week that goes by.”

He goes on to say that his “friend” Donald Trump thought he could make Russia and Ukraine reach “a sensible compromise to end the sort of scale of killing we’ve not seen since probably World War I”.

“And Putin proves with every week that goes by that he’s not rational, that he doesn’t want a just settlement, and that, frankly, he is an incredibly dangerous man,” he adds.

Farage then hits out at the prime minister for claiming that he is a “Russian asset” for meeting Putin.

“Well a year after that, the Queen met him. Whether she was a Russian asset, I’m not entirely sure,” he adds sarcastically.

A Conservative Spokesman said: “Nigel Farage just called a press conference and used it to rant at journalists over historic allegations of racism and antisemitism – allegations he has just admitted are true.

“Farage is too busy furiously defending himself to defend democracy from the Labour Party’s elections delays.

“Reform’s one man band is in chaos once again.”

Nigel Farage said he would be willing to talk to leading Tory Robert Jenrick about a potential defection.

The Reform leader said he receives advice on who to approach regularly, including “one or two” who have backed Mr Jenrick.

And Mr Farage said he would be willing to talk to the top Tory.

Asked at a press conference why the British businessman spends so much time in Thailand, the Reform leader said: “Because that’s where he’s been based for some of his business activities for many, many years … his natural home is here.

“His donation is nothing out of the blue. It’s nothing new. I mean, after all … he was a dedicated Brexiteer. He gave a significant amount of money to the Brexit Party at the time.

“I think what he wants to do, really, is to try and help us get onto a level playing field with the trade union-funded Labour Party and a Conservative Party where there seems to be a remarkable correlation, I can’t think why, between donations and membership of the House of Lords.”

Mr Farage continued: “Does he want anything in return for his money? I promise you absolutely nothing. Do I speak to him regularly? Maybe once a month, maybe once every six weeks, but certainly not more than that.”

Nigel Farage said he is considering taking legal action to force local elections to be held.

But, asked if he would sue the BBC, Mr Farage said they can become very demanding and expensive.

Nigel Farage said Reform UK would stand the same candidates as planned in four mayoral elections delayed until 2028.

He said they would also lead campaigning in county council elections already postponed in those areas until next year.

He said he had been told by a senior member of an Essex council that councils were “ready” for the mayoral elections and had spent “millions” across Essex in preparation.

The Clacton MP suggested the reason behind postponing the mayoral elections was that his party would have won them.

He said: “What is happening is wrong.

“However, our adopted mayoral candidates … will stay in place. They will be our candidates in 2028 and they will now lead our county council campaigns in those areas.

“We are annoyed, we are angry at what happened last year and it just shows the total and utter disdain this country has for liberty, democracy and freedom.”

Mr Farage said: “We do not have the power to stop this local government reorganisation.

“I regret it. Realism says it is happening.

“We’re not standing here saying we will reverse the changes. Our electorate are being put through enough.

“We will do as much as we can to make it work as well as we can.”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has vowed to reverse David Lammy’s controversial decision to abolish jury trials.

Mr Farage said the Ministry of Justice should reopen magistrates courts to get through the backlog of cases.

He says courts should sit between 7am and 10pm.

Nigel Farage continues his attack on the BBC, demanding they apologise for their numerous scandals.

He said: “I cannot put up with the double standards at the BBC about what I’m alleged to have said 49 years ago, and what you were putting out on mainstream content.

“So I want an apology from the BBC for virtually everything you did during the 1970s and 80s.”

Turning to the substance of the allegations, Farage reads out a letter that he says is from someone who he went to school with.

He quotes an unnamed Jewish pupil as saying: “While there was plenty of macho, tongue-in-cheek schoolboy banter, it was humour. And yes, sometimes it was offensive […] but never with malice.

“I never heard him racially abuse anyone. If he had, he would have been reported and punished. He wasn’t.”

Nigel Farage slams the “double standards of hypocrisy” of the BBC.

Taking questions, the Reform leader is asked about reports in the Guardian and the BBC that he used racist and antisemitic language when he was at school, claims he has denied.

The Reform UK leader criticises a BBC Today presenter who questioned the party’s deputy leader about the allegations this morning.

“I think to frame a question around the leader of Reform’s ‘relationship with Hitler’, which is how she framed it, was despicable, disgusting beyond belief,” he says.

Visibly infuriated, Farage goes on to say: “The double standards and hypocrisy of the BBC are absolutely astonishing.

“At the time I was alleged to have made these remarks, one of your most popular weekly shows was ‘The Black and White Minstrels’. The BBC were very happy to use blackface.”

Farage says Labour doesn’t believe in “liberty” or “individual freedom”.

He said: “It is, frankly, a very authoritarian government,” the Reform UK leader says.

“It doesn’t really believe in liberty, it doesn’t really believe in individual freedom, and […] it doesn’t really believe in democracy either.”

Farage raged at the cancellation of local elections, declaring: “There really is no good reason why these elections should not go ahead. But then of course there is one very big reason why these elections should not go ahead, and there’s no prizes for guessing.

“Electoral Calculus put out their predictions an hour ago, that Reform would have won all four of these contests, and would have won them quite comfortably.

“The government are basically committing electoral fraud upon the electorate who had every opportunity to put Reform mayors in place.”

Farage: “It shows the total and utter disdain this country has for liberty, democracy, freedom and everything we have held dear.

“I have to say personally I increasingly hold the individuals that run this government with absolute and total contempt”

Nigel Farage’s emergency press conference is about to start, should be up around 3pm to discuss the scrapping of next year’s mayoral elections.

Ministers have confirmed plans to delay mayoral elections.

Elections for four new powerful regional mayors, in Greater Essex, Norfolk & Suffolk, Hampshire & the Solent, and Sussex & Brighton, had been due to take place next May.

But they are being delayed, with opposition politicians claiming Labour fears it will suffer humiliating defeats. Ministers have confirmed that votes won’t be held until 2028.

The King has said the UK and Germany are ready to “bolster Europe” against the threat of further Russian aggression and both nations “stand” with Ukraine.

Charles spoke as tensions between Europe and Russia appeared to intensity this week after Vladimir Putin accused Kyiv’s European allies of sabotaging US-led efforts to end the war.

The King’s comments were made during a Windsor Castle state banquet staged in honour of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and in a lighter moment the King quipped about his nation’s football prowess, saying “in the end, the Germans win”.

Charles told guests seated in St George’s Hall: “With regard to shared defence, our German-British Bridging Battalion at Minden – which I visited during our state visit two years ago – is literally building bridges, a unique partnership at the heart of Nato.

“And more broadly, of course, the United Kingdom and Germany together stand with Ukraine and bolster Europe against the threat of further Russian aggression.”

The UK and Norway are to sign a defence pact that will see their navies operate a combined fleet of warships to hunt Russian submarines in the North Atlantic.

The deal is aimed at protecting critical undersea cables which are under increasing threat from Moscow, with a 30% rise in Russian vessels sighted in UK waters in the past two years, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said.

The announcement comes as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer hosts his Norwegian counterpart Jonas Store at RAF Lossiemouth in northern Scotland on Thursday.

The two leaders will hear from P-8 maritime patrol crews who have been tracking Russian vessels including the spy ship Yantar, which recently pointed lasers at one of the aircraft