The new Brexit plan put to the European Union Thursday by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson “resembles nothing so much as an attempt to put lipstick on a pig”, Brexit leader Nigel Farage has said.
Following the presentation of the government’s ‘new’ Brexit plan — which is the withdrawal agreement handed to previous leader Theresa May by the European Union and subsequently voted down three times in Parliament but with minor alterations — veteran Brexit campaigner and Brexit Party leader has taken to the pages of British broadsheet The Daily Telegraph to express his reservations.
Noting the danger to the United Kingdom itself as a union of nations posed by the proposed plan, Mr Farage pointed to the fact that if accepted, the deal would split Northern Ireland off from Great Britain. This, in turn, he said would lead to Scotland demanding the same, leaving Boris Johnson with the legacy not of being the Prime Minister who took Britain out of the European Union, but who set the country on the road to being split up into its constituent parts.
Pointing to an alternative route, the Brexit leader wrote:
There is an alternative. Before long, a general election will be upon us. It would be far better for Johnson to say that the Withdrawal Agreement is dead and that a new government will negotiate a genuine free trade agreement with the EU. He could offer them a deadline of a few months in which to agree and, if they are not interested, Britain would leave the EU on WTO terms.
For the electorate, this would be a clear and decisive act of leadership. And, if Johnson is prepared to agree a pact with the Brexit Party, he would command a big majority in the House of Commons.
Better still, given that I am pretty certain Brussels will reject us breaking free of the customs union, is for the Prime Minister to keep his word that we will leave the EU on October 31 “do or die”. A clean-break Brexit means we can go on negotiating and signing trade deals immediately, save tens of billions of pounds and genuinely be independent and free. Let’s hope the prime minister keeps his word.
Read more at the Daily Telegraph
Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party has persistently made overtures to the Conservatives about a potential electoral pact, recognising that neither party probably commands sufficient support in the country to win an election outright — opening the possibility of a remain coalition of smaller, left-wing parties capturing the government. Boris Johnson has rejected the suggestion, insisting the Conservatives would win the election alone.