{"id":38966,"date":"2025-10-10T23:28:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T23:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/lib-dems-back-bank-of-england-after-farage-criticism\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T23:28:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T23:28:00","slug":"lib-dems-back-bank-of-england-after-farage-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/lib-dems-back-bank-of-england-after-farage-criticism\/","title":{"rendered":"Lib Dems back Bank of England after Farage criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The Liberal Democrats have promised to back the Bank of England’s (BoE) independence “against Farage’s threats” after the Reform leader urged it to end its bond-selling programme.<\/p>\n

On Friday, party leader Sir Ed Davey and his deputy Daisy Cooper met the bank’s governor Andrew Bailey to “reaffirm support” for the Bank’s autonomy.<\/p>\n

It comes two weeks after Nigel Farage met Mr Bailey<\/a> to argue for the end of BoE bond sales, known as quantitative tightening, claiming it is costing taxpayers billions and driving up debt.<\/p>\n

Sir Ed accused Farage of “putting his obsession with mimicking Donald Trump ahead of what is in the best interests of the British people” by pressuring the central bank.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Reform UK has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n

Sir Ed has pledged to lead the fight against Reform UK – using his Lib Dem conference speech to argue his party had a “moral responsibility” to challenge Farage.<\/p>\n

Speaking after his meeting at the Bank’s Threadneedle Street HQ, Sir Ed said: “Liberal Democrats will stand firmly behind Bank of England independence, just as we have stood against recent attacks on the independence of our judiciary.<\/p>\n

“Trump’s threats to sack governors of the Fed if they don’t do what he wants are causing economic panic in the United States,” Sir Ed said.<\/p>\n

“That is the last thing we need here at home – we cannot let Trump’s America become Farage’s Britain.” <\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters later, Sir Ed argued the BoE needed “modernisation” but argued keeping it independent from government was “the best way” to lower food bills and mortgage rates. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Bank began its quantitative tightening programme in 2022<\/a>, unwinding the emergency support it brought in after the 2008 financial crisis.<\/p>\n

That earlier process, known as quantitative easing, saw the Bank electronically create billions of pounds to buy UK government bonds, a form of debt, in a bid to prop up the UK economy by keeping market interest rates low.<\/p>\n

The Bank subsequently launched new rounds of QE after the eurozone debt crisis, the Brexit referendum and the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n

The Bank is now in the process of selling these bonds for less than it paid for them, with losses being picked up by the Treasury under a deal agreed in 2009.<\/p>\n

Reform has criticised the process, with deputy leader Richard Tice branding it a “systemic misuse of taxpayers’ money” in a letter to Bailey in June.<\/p>\n

He also blamed it for increasing the costs of long-term government debt, which recently rose to a 27-year high.<\/p>\n

Farage and Tice visited the Bank for talks with Bailey on 25 September, after the Bank chief agreed to a meeting.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters afterwards, Tice called for MPs to take a more active role in debating the policy, arguing they were reluctant to do so for fear of encroaching on the bank’s independence.<\/p>\n

But he added that the “huge multibillion cost” meant it had an impact on taxation, traditionally a matter for Parliament, and could “change the decisions the chancellor makes” at November’s Budget.<\/p>\n

They also pressed the Bank to relax its stance on cryptocurrencies, accusing it of holding back innovation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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The Liberal Democrats have promised to back the Bank of England’s (BoE) independence “against Farage’s threats” after the Reform leader urged it to end its bond-selling programme. On Friday, party leader Sir Ed Davey and his deputy Daisy Cooper met the bank’s governor Andrew Bailey to “reaffirm support” for the Bank’s autonomy. It comes two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[1026,4155,5315,278,2081,5314],"class_list":["post-38966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","tag-bank","tag-criticism","tag-dems","tag-england","tag-farage","tag-lib"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38968,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38966\/revisions\/38968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}