Nigel Farage reacts to call by politician for nuclear deterrent

       Nigel Farage hit out at a "mad" call by an EU politician for a European nuclear deterrent.

       German MEP Manfred Weber insisted Europe needs to be able to defend itself without relying on the US ahead of a possible return to the White House by Donald Trump.

       But Mr Farage dismissed fears that Mr Trump would abandon the Nato military alliance.

       The GB News presenter said: "I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Donald Trump's rise, the inevitability of him being the Republican candidate, the increasing likelihood if you believe the polls that he's going to become the 47th President of the USA was being used increasingly by European politicians as a means of trying to develop their long-held dream, or some would say fantasy, of a European army.

       "The argument goes, Trump will leave NATO, therefore Europe needs to do this stuff for itself.

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       "Now there is no evidence of that whatsoever. All he ever did when he was president last time round was condemn 25 NATO members for not paying the basic membership fee.

       "But fast out of the blocks today came Manfred Weber, a former colleague of mine from the European Parliament, he's the leader of the centre-right EPP group, they're the biggest political grouping across the EU.

       "He was talking to Politico, and he was talking about European nuclear defences, the fact that NATO relies heavily on US nuclear warheads.

       "He has said, 'Europe must build deterrence, we must be able to deter and defend ourselves'.

       "So it isn't just an active army, air force and navy the EU now wants, they now want their own nuclear weapons. This strikes me as being mad, it strikes me as being really rather dangerous too."

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       Mr Weber, leader of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP), said Europe needs to be strong enough to defend itself without Nato or "in times of Trump".

       He told Politico: "Europe must build deterrence, we must be able to deter and defend ourselves.

       "We all know that when push comes to shove, the nuclear option is the really decisive one."

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