JERUSALEM: Israel’s foreign minister said on Wednesday he spoke to Nigel Farage, leader of Britain’s hard-right Reform UK party, to thank him for opposing sanctions imposed by the UK government. “I thanked him for his and his party’s support for Israel. He told me he was pleased to have addressed the Reform Friends of Israel event at the party conference in Birmingham last week,” Gideon Saar wrote on X. Britain’s Labour government announced on Tuesday a ban on imports from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which are illegal under international law, accusing settlers of “ethnic cleansing” through their rising attacks on Palestinians. France and Canada also said they were imposing trade curbs on Israeli settlements. Right-wing anti-immigration politician Farage “assured me unequivocally that, in government, Reform UK would reverse the damage done to the UK-Israel relationship by the Labour Government and its policies”, Saar wrote. In response, Farage said a Reform government “would undo the damage caused by Labour”. But he also said that he raised with Saar the issue of the Falklands, British-ruled islands in the South Atlantic over which Argentina’s President Javier Milei has stepped up his country’s claims. “I emphasised the Falklands issue to him and its importance to the British people, though I understand Israel’s relationship with President Milei,” Farage said. Various right-wing Israeli leaders and commentators, including firebrand National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, have called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to recognise Argentinian sovereignty over the Falklands in retaliation for British sanctions. Milei is a staunch ally of Netanyahu. Argentina fought a war with the UK for control of the Falklands in the 1980s. On Tuesday, Saar said he held calls about the sanctions with British Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch and shadow foreign secretary Tom Tugendhat, as well as with Melissa Lantsman, deputy leader of Canada’s Conservatives.