Ex-Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg contested the claim, pointing to Britain\u2019s departure from the European Union, which he said would not have happened without the influence of the Reform UK leader.<\/p>\n
GB News\u2019s Deputy Political Editor Tom Harwood put it to Atkinson that her party leader Keir Starmer not campaigning in Runcorn and Helsby was an \u201cunusual\u201d move given it is the first by-election of his term.<\/p>\n
![\"Catherine](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/catherine-atkinson-nigel-farage-and-jacob-rees-mogg.png\")
Jacob Rees-Mogg and Catherine Atkinson locked horns over Nigel Farage’s achievements in politics<\/p>\n
GB NEWS \/ PA<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he has been getting on with running the country\u201d, she said. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing NHS waiting lists coming down month on month and we\u2019re rolling out breakfast clubs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re also seeing a return to neighbourhood policing. He\u2019s been a bit busy. I think especially with the fantastic work he has been doing on the global stage when things are uncertain, I could understand why he has one or two other things to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS<\/strong><\/p>\n Catherine Atkinson said Keir Starmer has been too busy to visit Runcorn and Helsby for its by-election<\/p>\n GB NEWS<\/p>\n She continued: \u201cThere are elections happening across the country. There\u2019s nothing new with Nigel Farage winning votes, he\u2019s done it with lots of different parties.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2014, he got loads of votes and more seats than anyone else in Europe but what can he actually say he has achieved for anyone?\u201d<\/p>\n Jacob responded: \u201cWell, we left the European Union. That\u2019s quite a big achievement.<\/p>\n \u201cWe left because of Nigel winning so many votes in 2014 and David Cameron promising an election.\u201d<\/p>\n Atkinson said Farage has been \u201cdisowning Brexit\u201d ever since, before Jacob returned to the overarching point about Keir Starmer\u2019s absence from this by-election campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cI think your efforts on the line to take are absolutely noble – I admire you for that. I have never known a prime minister to be too busy to campaign when his party is doing well\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it\u2019s doing bad, prime ministers run away from by-elections. John Major never went anywhere near by-elections because we lost them all.\u201d<\/p>\n Tom Harwood turned his attention to Jacob, saying Kemi Badenoch has also not been campaigning in the constituency.<\/p>\n The ex-Tory MP said such a move would prove ultimately pointless given how the party is extremely unlikely to win in an area which has traditionally been a Labour stronghold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watch the moment a debate about Nigel Farage\u2019s influence on British politics kicks off on GB News. As…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,2451,12,285,6226,386,512,16,1259,3106,15,6225],"class_list":{"0":"post-66936","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-jacob-rees-mogg","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-presenters","19":"tag-reform-uk","20":"tag-sgg","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-uk-news","23":"tag-uk-politics","24":"tag-united-kingdom","25":"tag-video-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114435207005296024","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Catherine](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/catherine-atkinson.png\")