The King will have to stop speaking out about some of the causes closest to his heart if Nigel Farage wins the next general election, according to multiple sources.
As Labour leadership rivals circle Sir Keir Starmer after poor local election results and the monarch faces the prospect of a fourth prime minister in his four years on the throne, insiders have revealed that the possibility of Farage in Downing Street is the source of more concern at the palace.
Charles’s record as a prominent environmentalist has helped successive governments cement Britain’s position as a world leader in the fight against climate change. The expectation is that under a Reform UK government, the King would be less able to speak out on these issues, despite the party’s apparent pro-monarchy stance. It has vowed, for example, to make all state-funded schools in England display a portrait of the King and fly a Union flag.
Palace insiders, constitutional experts and royal biographers have suggested that the arrival of Farage in Downing Street would curb the monarch’s ability to publicly support the UK’s push to reach net zero on carbon emissions, as well as the many other environmental causes he has championed for more than half a century.
Farage branded Charles ‘eco loony’
A government helmed by the Reform leader, who in 2021 described Charles as an “eco-loony” and “stupid”, would challenge the values that the King has stood for most of his life. Farage has since rowed back on the comments, telling the BBC in 2024 that he “can’t speak ill of the monarch,” but concerns remain among royal insiders.
“If Reform gets in, the King would have to stop speaking about climate change,” one senior royal source said. The royal biographer Robert Hardman agreed. “He’ll have to if the government doesn’t want him to do that,” he said.
Charles spoke more freely as Prince of Wales, but as King he has a duty to act on ministerial advice and represent government policy on the world stage – while retaining the constitutional right to encourage, warn and be consulted by ministers in private.
The Reform leader has been more outspoken in his attacks on the positions Charles took as Prince of Wales than politicians who have held republican sympathies – including former Conservative prime minister Liz Truss, in her younger days, and ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Francesca Jackson, a monarchy and constitution researcher at Lancaster University, said: ‘Were [Farage] to become prime minister, it would, to the best of my knowledge, be the first time that a prime minister has openly criticised the monarch in this way.
It may not stop at the environment. When The Times reported in June 2022 that Charles had privately described Boris Johnson’s policy of deporting migrants to Rwanda as “appalling”, Farage fired back immediately: “Unless Prince Charles wants to destroy the monarchy he had better shut up fast.” The clash cut to the heart of one of Reform’s defining issues – border control and mass deportation of illegal arrivals – and seemed to signal an ideological fault line between the King and the populist right.
In July last year, that tension resurfaced when Farage said Charles was “making a mistake” after the King suggested in a state banquet speech to France’s President Emmanuel Macron that the challenges both countries faced “know no borders” – a phrase Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice also condemned.
No recorded one-to-one meeting
There is no record in the Court Circular – the official register of royal engagements – of the two men ever meeting one-to-one, though Farage has spoken with the King at parliamentary receptions and similar events. Private meetings would not necessarily appear in the official record.
At a Buckingham Palace reception for new MPs in January 2025, Farage suggested their encounters had been good-natured rather than hostile. “He came to the European Parliament many years ago and gave a big speech to which he got a standing ovation,” he said. “Apart from me. I sat there with arms folded. So we’ve had a laugh about it ever since. It’s not nasty, it’s climate change and stuff like that.”
Both men have sufficient charm and skills to be able to get on in spite of their differences, according to some insiders. In February last year, the King also revived the tradition of giving an audience to the opposition leader, Kemi Badenoch. But Charles keeps what he thinks of Farage or indeed any other politician, close to his chest. His admirers stress that he has shown an ability to get on with anyone, even those with diametrically opposite views. “If he can come away from a perfectly agreeable week with Donald Trump then I don’t think anyone over here will cause him problems,” Hardman said.
King Charles received plaudits for his skilful execution of his diplomatic duties during the recent US state visit (Photo: Samir Hussein/WireImage)Catherine Mayer, another biographer of the King and author of the forthcoming book Divide and Rule: Royal Women and their Battles, argues that Charles resists easy political categorisation. His environmentalism, she says, is “often mistaken as a sign that he skews to the left” when its roots lie in “imperial ecology and old-style conservationism as well as older philosophies.” It is also “entwined with his wider belief system”, she adds, including his dislike of modernist architecture and his deep involvement in interfaith work.
The politicians who have got closest to him are those who have engaged with his aims and interests “regardless of party affiliation or stance on monarchy” – and who treat him as an intellectual equal and “are entertaining.”
“Politicians quite often stumble on both counts,” she adds.
Burnham aware of King’s campaigning zeal
Royal sources agree. Despite tensions over Lord Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador, Charles has worked closely with Starmer — though he was said to be uneasy about the prime minister flourishing the royal invitation to Trump in Washington for a rare second state visit. The King and Ed Miliband share a passion for net zero; Angela Rayner’s genuine interest in his approach to housing while she oversaw new towns policy appears to have generated real chemistry; and it is easy to imagine Charles and Wes Streeting bonding over their shared experience of cancer.
Of the contenders, Andy Burnham has perhaps had the least exposure to the King, though the two have met on Charles’s visits to Manchester – including after the attack on Heaton Park Synagogue in October last year. Charles also lobbied him over NHS complementary medicine when Burnham was health secretary under Gordon Brown – giving him an early insight into the King’s impassioned, campaigning side.
But there could still be ways under a Farage government for the King to continue having an impact, according to the royal biographer Hugo Vickers. Charles’s charities, the Sustainable Markets Initiative and taking part in television documentaries give him ways to advance his mission at arm’s length, while his role as head of the Commonwealth and King of 14 other countries would allow him to represent the views of other nations. “But he would have to be very careful about how he did it,” Vickers said.
Prince William, too, is expected to continue his father’s legacy by speaking out for urgent action to combat climate change and other environmental catastrophes and by promoting his Earthshot Prize for green innovation. Sources close to William have suggested that the collapse in the cross-party consensus over net zero – Reform wants to scrap it and the Conservatives no longer support the legally binding target of 2050 – make it even more vital that he speaks out.
Buckingham Palace, Nigel Farage, and Reform UK all declined to comment.
Hence then, the article about why farage as pm would be the king s worst nightmare was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Why Farage as PM would be the King’s worst nightmare )
Also on site :