Nigel Farage has said he does not believe Sir Ed Davey can survive the scandal of his role in the Horizon scandal and remain leader of the Liberal Democrats.
Speaking on GB News he said:
“Tonight, my question is about Sir Ed Davey, they're all Sirs, it's funny, isn't it?
“Ed Davey, there he was from 2010 to 2012, he was the Minister responsible for Post Offices. That was at the time when the first really big wave of convictions took place.
“And yes, Mr. Bates of ITV fame, wrote to Davey, no fewer than five times.
“But it was a story that was revealed by my GB News colleague Andrew Pierce, that really interested me.
“His story said this: In 2017, 500 postmasters teamed up to launch a group litigation against the Post Office, which responded in turn in 2019 by hiring attack dog lawyers of the blue chip city firm, Herbert Smith Freehills, HSF, to fight its corner.
“And this is where Davey makes his second appearance in the scandal.
“In the very same year the group action was launched, five years after Davey had behaved so shamefully as a minister, he was himself hired by HSF.
“Now I'm not sure whether Andrew Pierce has got the timelines exactly right. But what is clear is that Ed Davey was being paid £5000 a month by HSF.
“Now he'll say it's for political advice. But it's the very same firm the Post Office were hiring to try and stop 500 postmasters from overturning their guilty verdicts.
“I have to say that from Ed Davey, this at the very best is a gross error of judgment.
“To have been paid £275,000 by the very firm that was trying to stop justice being done to the postmasters and post mistresses when he'd been the Minister responsible during the peak of it was a grave error of judgment.
“So can Ed Davey survive as leader of the Liberal Democrats? I don't think he can. I think that the pressure upon him is going to become simply intolerable.
“It will be a massive distraction from everything the Lib Dems tried to do and let's face it, his leadership is doing pretty poorly anyway. The Reform party is now consistently above the Liberal Democrats in the polls.”
