Nigel Farage raised a pint to England’s World Cup victory on Wednesday night – but the photo he posted was two years old.
Shortly after England’s 4-2 win over Croatia in Dallas, the Reform UK leader tweeted an image of himself in a vintage Euro 96 England shirt, clutching a beer in a packed pub, with the caption: “Proper job. @England”.
“Nigel Farage reused a 2024 pub photo to celebrate England's 2026 World Cup win, sparking mockery and a Labour attack on his trustworthiness.”
Eagle-eyed users quickly spotted the problem: they had seen it before. The exact same picture – same pose, same shirt, same pub, same crowd – had been posted by Farage during Euro 2024, when England played a drab group-stage draw against Slovenia.
On X, the backlash was merciless. One user asked if Farage “had a time machine”. Another simply called him a “lying bastard”. A third sarcastically suggested he had “arranged for everyone he was in the pub with in 2024 to get back together in their same clothes to watch England play Croatia”. Another user speculated that if Keir Starmer had been caught using an old photo, “the backlash would probably be enough to finish him off”.
A Reform source dismissed the criticism, telling the Mirror’s deputy political editor Mikey Smith, who first spotted the reuse, to get a reality check and “touch some grass”.
But a Labour source struck back, saying: “From the questions over his secret £5 million ‘gift’, who paid for his Clacton house, and swathes of potentially undeclared private jet and chopper trips with his donor – it’s clear you can’t trust a word Nigel Farage says. If Farage can’t even be straight with the public on where he watched the football, you’re left to wonder – what else is he hiding?”
Farage had appeared on GB News earlier on Tuesday, urging Thomas Tuchel’s squad to “go for goal”, but admitted he was “not really” convinced England could lift the trophy for the first time since 1966.
It is not the first time Reform’s football gambits have backfired this week. The party’s MP Sarah Pochin faced backlash after attempting to raise awareness of research showing domestic abuse reports rise during major England games, tweeting: “For the sake of women’s safety we need England to…”
Farage has spent much of this week in Makerfield, where voters go to the polls in today’s by-election. He has been campaigning alongside candidate Robert Kenyon, who has been spotted wearing an England top throughout the campaign. Farage will be hoping Kenyon can pull off an upset against Andy Burnham – though, on present form, the only upset may be the one he caused with his recycled photo.