Politics

Nigel Farage Shut Down in Commons Clash over HS2 Bombshell

Published on June 19, 2025

Nigel Farage had a go at making headlines again, but this time Labour minister Heidi Alexander wasn’t having any of it. The Reform UK leader called for the entire HS2 project to be scrapped during a Commons debate, but Alexander firmly knocked him back in what turned into a pretty direct exchange.

It all kicked off after the government announced that HS2 would be delayed yet again, with completion now pushed beyond 2033. Following a review into the troubled high-speed rail line, Transport Secretary Alexander laid out what she described as a “litany of failure” around how the whole thing has been managed so far.

Despite the chaos, she made it clear that phase one of the project — the stretch between London and Birmingham — will still go ahead. Speaking in the Commons, Alexander said, “We will learn the lessons of the past 15 years, and restore our reputation of delivering world-class infrastructure projects. Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been wasted by constant scope changes, ineffective contracts and bad management”, reported the Guardian.

Farage was one of the few MPs actually in the chamber when she delivered the statement, and he didn’t waste time making his feelings known. In typical fashion, he suggested the best solution was to just bin the entire project altogether. According to him, HS2 would have only served “rich businessmen” and ended up shifting jobs and businesses from the North to London instead of the other way around.

He stood up and asked, “Surely the time has come to scrap the entirety of the project and recognise that we got it wrong?” No messing about — straight to the point, as always.

But Alexander wasn’t in the mood to let that one slide. She clapped back by saying the government wasn’t going to let Britain become “a country that spends over £30b on rail infrastructure, but then never sees a train running on it.” She questioned why Farage would want to throw away even more taxpayer money by abandoning the project halfway through.

Then she really leaned in. “I think those two great cities in our country deserve a railway that’s fit for the 21st century,” she told the Clacton MP. “I’m just sorry he doesn’t.”

She also pointed out that there are “significant capacity constraints between Birmingham and London” that HS2 is meant to help solve, making it pretty clear she thinks scrapping it now would do more harm than good.

So while Farage may have thought he was offering a blunt dose of common sense, Alexander gave it right back and then some, firmly planting the government’s flag in favour of moving forward — delays and all. Whether or not HS2 eventually delivers what it promised remains to be seen, but for now, it’s full steam ahead, and Farage’s derail attempt didn’t get very far.

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