Nigel Farage has condemned Labour for deceiving its Leave supporters by backing a host of anti-Brexit and pro-open borders positions, and declared “war” on the now far-left party.
Speaking at a rally in Maidstone in Kent, south-east England, on Thursday night, Mr Farage said that Labour “lied to us on Brexit. They now want to have a second referendum that gives us the choice of Remain… or Remain!
“And now they want to open up the doors to uncontrolled mass immigration.
“I think now we as the Brexit Party know that we are absolutely… at war politically with the Labour Party that have deceived and cheated their own people and do not stand for this country.”
In previous decades, it was the Labour Party that represented the working-class Eurosceptic, with patriotic figures such as Peter Shore — who delivered the famous speech oo the original “Project Fear” prior to the 1975 referendum on membership of the European Economic Community — Michael Foot, and Tony Benn, who all believed that deeper integration with a European superstate would drive down wages and strip Britons of their democratic rights and national independence.
Even Jeremy Corbyn, who had called the EU a “military Frankenstein” moving towards a “European empire”, had voted against the EEC, before, to the surprise of Labour Leavers, backing Remain in 2016 — likely to appease the party’s globalist parliamentarians and student activists.
Kate Hoey and John Mann are two of the last notable Labour Brexiteers left in the Labour parliamentary party; however, Ms Hoey announced in July that she would be not be seeking reelection as a Labour candidate at the next General Election and Mr Mann quit the party in September over Mr Corbyn’s handing of the party’s ongoing antisemitism scandals.
Despite pulling his party behind Remain and saying he voted Remain himself, Mr Corbyn pledged in his 2017 manifesto, before the last snap election, to respect the Leave result and deliver Brexit, which reassured Labour Leavers at the polls and ensured gains for the party which took the Tories by surprise.
However, after two years of pressure from Labour Remainers, Corbyn announced in July 2019 that he would back a second referendum and vote Remain if the options were between either a Tory-backed exit agreement or no deal and staying in the EU, leaving left-wing Leavers betrayed.
The party’s anti-Brexitism was solidified in this week’s Labour Party conference, where party members voted in favour of motions that will find their way into the next manifesto.
On Monday, Labour Party members backed a motion to support a second referendum where the two options would be Remain versus a super-soft Brexit treaty renegotiated by Corbyn, or as Mr Farage described it: “The choice of Remain… or Remain!”
While on Wednesday, members took the extraordinary move to get behind ripping up the country’s immigration laws, back global free movement, and give foreigners residing in the UK voting rights, with the Brexit Party leader responding: “Labour is now officially the party of open door mass migration without control. Old Labour voters will be appalled by this.”
Labour — condemned as the party of the liberal London elite — turning its back on its Leave supporters has opened the door to the Brexit Party in working-class heartlands like in the North and Midlands of England, as well as Wales.
A study revealed last week that Labour Leavers were not switching to the Conservative Party but to the Brexit Party, with 40 per cent of them rating their chances of backing the Brexit Party at 6/10 or higher, compared to just 12 per cent of Labour Leavers who gave the same chance of them supporting the Conservatives.
A ComRes poll for Britain Elects published this week found that three in ten Labour Leavers could be persuaded to make the move and back a Conservative candidate — if Nigel Farage recommended them to do so.
The movement in the Labour Party towards globalist progressivism and the findings in the polls lend weight to calls from both Mr Farage and Tory Eurosceptics for an election pact between the Brexit Party and the Conservatives in order to “smash” Labour and the “Remain coalition”.
Mr Farage has reached out to Mr Johnson, suggesting the Tories give the Brexit Party free run of 80 to 90 seats in Labour or Liberal Democrat heartlands, where Tories are unlikely to win, in exchange for not fielding candidates in the Conservatives’ target constituencies.
However, Johnson rejected the offer, with a Downing Street spokesman saying Mr Farage was “not [a] fit and proper” person who should “never be allowed anywhere near government”.
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