Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage has urged Prime Minister Theresa May to show “more determination” in Brexit negotiations with the European Union (EU) to avoid a disastrous trade deal saying, “No deal is better than where we are now.”
Hitting back at suggestions from anti-Brexit pressure group BrexitWatch that Mr. Farage is “afraid” of a no-deal exit from the EU, the UKIP MEP said: “Listen here, I coined the phrase ‘no deal is better than a bad deal.’
“No deal is better than where we are now: paying up to £10 billion every single year into an organisation that over regulates many of our industries, takes away our fishing waters, and bans us from making our trade deals with other parts of the world.”
Speaking on his LBC radio show Sunday morning, Farage said the UK looked weak in the EU following the Conservative Party’s disappointing election result and urged May to show “more determination” at the next EU leaders’ meeting on October 19th.
Arguing that a weak leader could only obtain a weak deal from the bloc, he warned that President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, Chief European Commission Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, and the European Parliament’s chief Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt would only allow a bad deal.
“I would like a grown-up, sensible trade deal. We are a great export market for the EU, we are happy to keep that.
“But from what I can see from the Junckers, the Barniers, the Verhofstadts is total obstructionism.
“Anyway they’re far too busy defending police barbarity in Catalonia than to worry about a UK trade deal. I’m not scared in the least.”
On Sunday the Conservative Party suspended two MEPs for voting against progressing Brexit negotiations, the move supported by the prime minister who is struggling to assert authority in her party and convince Brexiteers that she is capable of negotiating with her EU counterparts.
Believing that May will stay as leader “for now”, Farage warned: “Unless she does something quite dramatic to turn this around, she will in my view be gone by Christmas.”
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