Nigel Farage’s new Brexit party has had more candidates standing for May’s European Union elections announced, including a retired Royal Navy Admiral who formerly commanded Britain’s fleet of submarines.
Rear Admiral Roger Lane-Nott, who has been active in the Veterans for Brexit campaign group was revealed to be one of a group of candidates contesting the South West of England for the May European Union election Thursday.
During his military career, the now-retired officer served in the Borneo, Falklands, and Gulf War conflicts and commanded submarine and surface warships, before becoming the flag officer in command of Britain’s submarine fleet.
As a private individual, the top officer has supported a no-deal Brexit and joined several other top officers in 2016 to call on fellow veterans to vote against the European Union. Among his colleagues that made the appeal before the referendum was Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham, Rear Admiral Conrad Jenkin, Rear Admiral Richard Heaslip, Commodore Mike Clapp, Major General Julian Thompson, and former SAS chief General Sir Michael Rose.
He said in 2016 that the EU is “unelected out-of-control organisation that is autocratic and does not listen.”
Lane-Nott was a critic of David Cameron’s assertion that voting to leave the European Union could lead to World War Three, calling the claim “ludicrous” and “bizarre” in a 2016 speech, and has spoken out against Europe’s moves to form a single military structure.
Once denied as a “dangerous fantasy” of Brexiteers by then deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, it is now clear that the European Union is enthusiastically adopting the idea of a single army, but Lane-Nott has defended NATO as the greatest guarantor of European security.
In 2017, Lane-Nott told Breitbart London that the British government was not serious about defence, and that the Royal Navy was not prepared to protect the nation’s fishing waters from European plundering after Brexit. He said: “I’m all in favour of reclaiming our fishing grounds – but with the Fishery Protection Squadron in the UK cut down to just three vessels, the Royal Navy doesn’t have the capacity to patrol hundreds of thousands of miles of waters.
“The Government has to get serious about Defence; make sure we’re completely out of the EU’s various military integration schemes after Brexit, and redirect some of the money we currently send to Brussels towards rebuilding the fleet.”
The news of the former senior officer standing to defend Brexit comes a day after the Brexit party announced another coup for their slate of South-West candidates Wednesday when Tory grandee Ann Widdecombe was named as their top pick for the region.
The former minister broke a lifetime’s support for the Conservative party when declaring for the Brexit party, saying she wanted to deliver a “seismic shock” and “fire a very loud warning shot across the bows” of the establishment parties.
The polling for the Brexit Party, which is less than two weeks old, has been very positive with several polling companies finding them ahead of both Labour and the Conservatives for the European Union Parliament elections in May. Breitbart London reported last week on one such poll which had the party at 27 per cent, an unheard of achievement for a new party.