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Nigel Farage has suggested he would replace the governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, if he were to become prime minister.

“He’s had a good run, we might find someone new,” Farage said in an interview with Bloomberg’s The Mishal Husain show.

“He’s a nice enough bloke,” the Reform leader added.

However, Farage is unlikely to have a say in Bailey’s leadership, given the governor’s single eight-year term is due to end in March 2028 and the prime minister, Keir Starmer, is only required to hold a general election sometime before 15 August 2029.

Farage has been calling for politicians to have greater influence on the central bank, which was made independent in 1997 by the then chancellor, Gordon Brown.

His comments on Bailey’s position are the latest sign that Farage could seek to follow in the footsteps of his friend Donald Trump’s relationship with the US Federal Reserve.

Trump has sought to increase his administration’s influence over the US central bank, which like the Bank of England makes its interest rate decisions independently. The US president has demanded interest rate cuts and launched stinging attacks on the Fed’s chair, Jerome Powell – calling him a “moron” on social media – and threatening to remove him.

Farage’s latest comments come just weeks after he and Reform UK MP Richard Tice held a meeting with Bailey at the Bank’s Threadneedle Street headquarters.

Farage had been calling for the central bank to halt bond sales and cut the interest rate it pays to UK banks, after an exchange of letters, in which the governor agreed to a meeting.

Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, has previously said the Treasury should be allowed to appoint “one or two” government representatives to sit on the Bank’s rate-setting monetary policy committee (MPC).

The Reform UK leader, who previously worked as a commodities trader, has worked more recently as a brand ambassador for a gold company, and has discussed his goal of making London a global “powerhouse” for cryptocurrencies.

Farage, who has previously called Bailey a “dinosaur” for his views on digital currencies, said he was encouraged by the governor’s change of heart about stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency that is supposed to have a stable value, such as US$1 (£0.75) per token.

“The Bank of England, the British government, the regulator – whatever shape that takes – they’ve all got to understand the world is changing, has changed, very, very rapidly,” Farage said.

After Bailey’s meeting with Farage and Tice, a Bank of England spokesperson said the governor had “a productive meeting” with them.

24/10/2025
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Last year, ESA invited innovators across Europe to join the second Space Resources Challenge, a competition designed to accelerate technologies that will help humankind live and work sustainably on the Moon.

Last week, that challenge culminated in a field test lasting several days at the ESA-DLR LUNA facility in Cologne, Germany, where eight teams demonstrated robotic systems capable of collecting and processing lunar soil, known as regolith. The participating teams came from six countries—Canada, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, Poland and the United Kingdom—highlighting the global collaboration driving forward lunar exploration.

A vision for sustainable exploration

The Space Resources Challenge is part of a long-term strategy to develop In-Situ Resource Utilisation (ISRU) technologies. ESA launched the challenge in 2024 in partnership with the Luxembourg Space Agency and the European Space Resources Innovation Centre (ESRIC).

ISRU refers to the use of local resources, such as lunar regolith and water ice, to produce oxygen, fuel and construction elements that would reduce reliance on costly resupply missions from Earth.

The of the challenge focused on prospecting lunar resources. This second edition shifted the focus to collecting and processing lunar soil to extract oxygen.

The mission scenario

Participants were asked to simulate a future Moon mission set in the 2040s, where eight astronauts would stay at the lunar South pole for up to 30 days. Their survival depends on autonomous ISRU systems that extract oxygen from lunar regolith using molten salt electrolysis. Teams had to design robotic systems capable of digging up lunar regolith simulant, sorting particles by size to optimise oxygen production and operating autonomously or via remote control in a lunar-like environment.

Field testing at LUNA

The final field test took place at LUNA, the newly inaugurated Moon analogue facility next to ESA’s European Astronaut Centre. Over several days, the eight selected teams deployed their systems in this realistic testbed, designed to simulate lunar terrain, lighting and dust conditions. The LUNA facility provided a controlled environment for testing robotic mobility and strategies for collecting and processing lunar soil. Teams faced challenges such as dust control, remote operation, and navigating uneven terrain, but responded with creative solutions including modular designs, gravity-fed sieves and adaptive control systems.

“The Space Resources Challenge is more than a competition—it’s a glimpse into the future of lunar exploration. Hosting it at our LUNA facility gave teams a unique chance to test their technologies in a Moon-like environment, complete with dust, terrain, and operational time pressure. Seeing different teams develop real-world, functioning solutions under these conditions is incredibly informative for all involved. These kinds of hands-on experiences are exactly what we need to prepare for sustainable missions on the Moon”, explains Aidan Cowley, ExPeRT Technical Officer at ESA, who is supporting the challenge and will serve as the technical lead for the implementation of the activity proposed by the winning team.

What comes next

Following the field test, ESA will award a development contract to the most promising team, helping bring their concept closer to deployment on future lunar missions. The winning team is expected to be announced at the end of November. The Space Resources Challenge is set to return every three years, each time addressing a new segment of the ISRU value chain.

As Europe prepares for a sustained human presence on the Moon, initiatives like the Space Resources Challenge are laying the groundwork, turning bold ideas into mission-ready technologies.

Meet the teams

Team AGH Lunar Resources Initiatives, Poland

Team AGH from AGH University of Krakow developed a system featuring a screw-based digger that collected and stored lunar regolith in tubes, and a multi-level sifter using screens, vibrations and rotating brushes to separate particles into three size ranges. During the challenge, both systems performed well, though a tilt control issue required on-site adjustments. Despite this challenge, the team successfully demonstrated the ability to dig and sort over 20 kg of lunar regolith.

Team ASTROLITH, Canada

Led by Polytechnique Montréal and Uncharted AI, Team ASTROLITH developed Kirb-e, a robotic system built for Moon-like conditions designed to dig and sort lunar soil. The setup includes a strong mechanical shaker on three axes coupled with a gravity-powered sieve, meaning it uses gravity to help separate particles and a slow, steady feed to prevent clogging. Despite unexpected challenges, including remote operation issues and a flipped rover, the team’s smart design and dedicated student effort made the mission a success.

Team BREMEN, Germany

Team BREMEN is composed of members from the German Aerospace Center (DLR e.V.) and the German Research Institution for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) GmbH, supported by the Robotics Group of the University of Bremen. Using a rover equipped with rotating shovels, the team successfully collected and processed large quantities of regolith simulant. The material was then funneled into a rotary sieve to separate it by particle size. Despite minor challenges with dust mitigation and sieve clogging, the system performed well, demonstrating promising potential for future lunar deployment.

Team CRADLE, UK

Team CRADLE—short for the Centre for Robotic Autonomy in Demanding and Long-Lasting Environments—is a collaboration between the University of Manchester and engineering firm Amentum. Their system, MoLES³, combines a rover designed to dig lunar soil with a static unit that uses vibrating sieves to sort the soil into different particle sizes, preparing it for further use. Built for semi-autonomous remote operation, the modular system aims to maximise the time spent refining lunar soil while keeping energy use low. It ran successfully for two and a half hours during the challenge.

Team FZI DUST, Germany

From the FZI Research Center for Information Technology in Karlsruhe, this team built a wheeled robot equipped with a digging arm and a soil-sorting unit. Their system combined digging and sorting in one mobile setup, designed to work partly on its own or with remote control. It was built to handle rough terrain and aimed to reduce dust near a lunar base by processing soil directly at the excavation site. Despite a stuck component and a last-minute system reset, the team achieved high-purity output and valued the LUNA facility’s realistic setup for enabling adaptive, mission-like troubleshooting.

Team IPRL-API, UK

IPRL API is a startup formed for the Space Resources Challenge, spun out of Imperial College London. The team developed a system that uses a rotating drill—called an auger—that lifts the soil while built-in filters separate it by size as it moves upward. . This design reduces the need for extra equipment and saves energy To improve performance, they added small tapping elements to prevent clogging and a second sorting stage to refine particle size. Despite some technical setbacks during the challenge, the team adapted quickly and were impressed by the realistic environment at the LUNA facility.

Team LuMA, Luxembourg/Denmark

Team LuMA, a consortium of the University of Luxembourg, Aalborg University and Maana Electric, designed a fully 3D-printed system that combined a rover, a robotic arm and a particle filtration setup, each developed by one of the partner institutions. Designed for teleoperation and rugged terrain, the system aimed to tackle challenges like particle segregation and dust mitigation. Despite setbacks including clogging and communication loss, the team adapted on-site, manually resolving issues and adjusting processing rates.

Team TUBular, Germany

PhD students from TU Berlin’s Chair of Space Technology developed a modular robotic system tailored to lunar conditions, with support from Polimak and Lunex Technologies for payload development and testing. Their rover collects lunar soil using a rotating tube, which also acts as the internal storage in which it remains before it is carried to the stationary sieving unit. To reduce the risk of dust interfering with moving parts, they sealed the chassis and minimised exposed mechanisms. Although they faced challenges with motor drivers and software integration, the team was proud to complete and test their system at the LUNA facility, highlighting teamwork and adaptability under pressure.

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Campaigners including Tanni Grey-Thompson have warned that disabled drivers are at risk of being locked out of the electric car transition because of inaccessible chargers.

The former Paralympics champion and the Electric Vehicle Association England are pushing for the government to introduce standards to ensure chargers are easy to reach.

The number of public chargers across the UK is rising rapidly, with 17,400 – two an hour – installed in the year to July. However, the lack of standards means that disabled drivers have often been unable to trust that they can use them.

Obstacles such as raised kerbs or gravelled areas often make charger points inaccessible, while touchscreens can be too high on posts or angled away when using a wheelchair. Another issue for some disabled drivers is the weight of charging cables.

On Wednesday, the House of Lords passed an amendment to the government’s planning and infrastructure bill that would give the power to enforce accessibility standards on public chargers.

Lady Grey-Thompson, who won 11 gold medals across five Paralympics, now serves as a crossbench peer in the Lords. She regularly raises awareness over failures in accessible transport provision, including last year when she was forced to crawl off a train because there was no help.

She said she had felt unable to use electric cars, adding: “Disabled people have been completely forgotten about. I’ve tried to change to an electric car a couple of times. It has been really hard going.

“They [the government] just forget about us, because there’s not that many disabled people in positions of power.”

Vicky Edmonds, the chief executive of EVA England, said: “We’re currently risking millions of drivers being locked out of the transition to electric vehicles. Nearly half of EV drivers are struggling with accessibility of public charging and the number of public charge points continues to increase, by a quarter year on year last year.

“The government urgently needs to publish its revised accessibility standard and to take enabling powers to allow it to mandate that standard. Only then can we be certain that industry are genuinely incentivised to deliver accessible charging for all drivers.”

The UK has up to 1.35 million disabled drivers, 390,000 of whom are unlikely to have home-based EV charging, according to research commissioned by the Motability Foundation, the charity behind the scheme to subsidise vehicles for disabled people. Cuts to the scheme are under consideration by the chancellor, Rachel Reeves.

Only 2.3% of chargers match criteria set by the British Standards Institution. Efforts to make its standard, known as PAS 1899, more achievable have stalled.

Jamie Borwick, the Conservative peer who tabled the amendment, said installations of unsuitable chargers now would have effects for years and leave disabled drivers with few options when new petrol and diesel vehicles were withdrawn from sale after 2035.

“We’re going to have put together a whole mass of inaccessible chargers,” he said. Drawing on his experience as a former boss of London taxi-maker Manganese Bronze, Lord Borwick added: “You’ve got to design for disability from the very beginning.”

Nigel Fletcher, the chief executive of the Motability Foundation, said charging standards should be come mandatory. He added: “It is vital that all providers of public EV charging are taking responsibility for ensuring that their infrastructure is accessible.”

Vicky Read, the chief executive of the lobby group ChargeUK, said: “No drivers should be left behind in the transition to electric vehicles and this includes drivers with accessibility needs.

“Charge-point operators are already working with local authorities, private landlords and charging equipment manufacturers to ensure the charging needs of disabled drivers are met when developing sites but often face practical challenges in doing so.”

A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “We are fully committed to ensuring disabled drivers can easily charge their electric cars, which is why we commissioned a review into accessibility standards for charge points.

“The review has now concluded, and its findings will be published shortly. We continue to work with industry on how we can further strengthen access to chargers for disabled drivers.”