“I suppose I worry that the president will continue aggressively attacking Iran...That worries me because that would have even more serious implications for the price of oil, for inflation, for the whole Western world.”
That warning from Nigel Farage - Reform UK chief, Trump ally, Brexit architect - marks the clearest rupture in the trans-Atlantic populist bromance.
Farage, speaking Thursday after Trump's Republicans lost Congress in midterms, called the result a "disaster" and directly blamed the Iran war launched in February 2026. Fuel prices did the damage, he said.
It is a sharp turn. In February, Farage urged Britain to "back the Americans in this vital fight against Iran!" Now he calls Trump's decision "bizarre" and a breach of promise: “He broke a promise - that was no more foreign wars.”
Trump on Tuesday conceded that war and oil surge hurt Republicans. Oil jumped over $2 on Thursday or talk of new strikes.
Why does this matter for India? Directly. India imports 85% of its crude. Every $10 rise in Brent adds roughly $12-15 billion to India's import bill, pushes petrol above Rs 110 again, fuels inflation, and forces RBI to hold rates higher. The Iran war - through Strait of Hormuz disruption - already pushed Brent from $78 to $92 this year. Another escalation could tip it past $100.
Farage's critique mirrors anxieties in Delhi. India has walked a tightrope: buying discounted Russian oil while keeping Iranian Chabahar port access alive, and avoiding taking sides. A full-scale US-Iran war would squeeze that space, hit shipping insurance, and hurt remittances from Gulf.
European far-right is reading the same bill. Italy's Salvini and France's Bardella, both struggling with cost-of-living, have also cooled on Trump.
For Trump, losing Farage is symbolic - the man who stood beside him in 2016 is now saying endless war is bad politics. For Western conservatives, it shows populism has limits when pump prices rise.
As Farage put it: “We're eight months in, and the resultant rise in gas and diesel prices, more than anything else, is what did them in.”
Tags: #NigelFarage #DonaldTrump #IranWar #OilPrices #USMidterms #ReformUK #Inflation #IndiaOillmports #BrentCrude #Geopolitics