Nigel Farage believes a strong, first-place finish for his Brexit Party will put a clean, No Deal exit from the European Union “back on the table”, despite the strenuous efforts of Britain’s Remainer-dominated House of Commons to rule it out.
Mr Farage told reporters that the establishment Tory and Labour parties — which both ran on manifestos which promised to execute the British people’s vote to Leave the European Union and break with the bloc’s Customs Union, Single Market, and associated Free Movement migration regime in 2017, but are now failing to deliver — were “fearful” of his party’s surging popularity.
“It puts a no-deal Brexit back on the table,” he said when asked what the impact would be if the Brexit Party wins the upcoming European Parliament elections — which Britain will have to participate in despite voting to leave the EU almost three years ago, due to Prime Minister Theresa May repeatedly reneging on promises to have taken Britain out of the bloc by now.
“Parliament has taken it off the table. Our voters say, put it back on the table, and if we win, [the Brexit Party] will demand representation with the government at the next stage of negotiations,” he said.
“We have a deadline now of 31 October and we want to make sure, our voters want to make sure, that, actually, no deal is being seriously thought about.”
Theresa May, in particular, stated repeatedly that her stance with respect to the EU negotiations was that “no deal is better than a bad deal” — but ultimately accepted a deal which sees Britain hand over tens of billions of pounds to Brussels for seemingly nothing in return, besides a “transition period” in which the country will remain subject to all EU laws and regulations without any representation in the EU institutions, and no trade deal guaranteed at the end of it besides an emergency “backstop” arrangement in which Northern Ireland would be economically annexed by the bloc and the rest of the kingdom governed by an EU-controlled rulebook.
So far, she has not been able to win parliamentary approval for this deal, and she has also allowed the House of Commons to pass a number of motions and bills seeking to rule out a No Deal exit — which most observers accept gives the EU little incentive to make an improved offer.
Farage mused that there will be “huge numbers of Labour and Tories MPs fearful as to whether they can hold on to their seats” in the next general election if voters back the Brexit party in the European elections.
“That might just concentrate their minds… [considering how many of] those that vote for us in a European election… would repeat that in a general election,” he explained.
“[T]he indications I’m getting is: an awful lot of them. And that would mean we’d be at the level where the Brexit Party could start to win serious numbers of seats.”
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.