Farage Avoided Commons Budget Session Amid Fear of Altercation

Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, stated on October 28, 2026, that he deliberately skipped watching the Budget statement in the House of Commons due to concerns about potential physical altercations. He suggested his absence was a decision to "avoid conflict."

Farage's comments came after a previous "physical altercation" with an unnamed Member of Parliament (MP) in the Commons chamber during the State Opening of Parliament in May of the same year. He also indicated that his absence from Prime Minister's Questions earlier that day was due to similar apprehensions about a potential confrontation. Farage claimed his prayer card, used to reserve a seat in the chamber, had been removed earlier in the day.

Instead of attending the Budget presentation, Farage watched the statement from his party's offices accompanied by a team of advisers. He explained that this allowed him to review the Budget line by line with economists.

"At the State Opening of Parliament, I didn't want to but I got involved in a physical altercation with an MP in the chamber," Farage said during a press conference in Westminster following the Budget statement. "I didn't make a fuss about it, I didn't complain. But I could see, given that my prayer card had been removed, I was heading towards another physical altercation."

He added, "And just sometimes it's better to avoid conflict - that's one reason. The second reason is, actually, I sat going through the Budget with our team of economists in the office so I actually had the time to go through it line by line."

Farage concluded, "So it was actually more useful to me to sit in the office with a team of economists around me. I was going to go to PMQs but I could see potential conflict and being a very quiet, shy, modest kind of person, I decided to give it a wide berth."