Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has slammed Remainers for holding back the country for three-and-a-half years by stalling Brexit, saying it had done “untold damage” to the United Kingdom.
Speaking to talkRADIO host Julia Hartley-Brewer, Mr Farage praised the near-realisation of the June 2016 referendum result, calling it a “victory for ordinary people”.
“The entire establishment, just a few years ago, did not even want to discuss Brexit,” Mr Farage said, adding: “This victory has really come because thousands of ordinary folk up and down this country have campaigned for years. It is a remarkable thing. It just shows you that if you live in a democracy, anything is possible.”
He went on to criticise powerful Remainers, including former prime ministers, who by failing to accept the result — “losers’ consent” — had jeopardised the country’s standing internationally and hurt its economy.
The Brexit Party leader said: “I think they’ve done untold damage to this country in three-and-a-half years, firstly in terms of the economy and the way in which we could have been moving on, and secondly in terms of our global standing.”
Mr Farage’s assessment on the economic implications appears accurate, with the financial information firm IHS Markit finding that the British economy is being helped by the certainty over Brexit brought by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s election victory.
“The modest rebound in new work provides another signal that business conditions should begin to improve in the coming months, helped by a boost to business sentiment from greater Brexit clarity and a more predictable political landscape,” Tim Moore, Economics Associate Director at IHS Markit, said in comments reported by the Associated Press on Monday.
Despite Mr Farage’s criticisms on Remainers’ past endeavours, he observed that many in the Europhile camp — including fanatic Remainer Alastair Campbell — have now accepted that Brexit is happening, and a second referendum is “finished”. However, he intimated that the next battleground Remainers may pick could be over “the terms in which we’re leaving” — i.e., close alignment with the EU in a trade deal.
Speaking to the BBC’s Andrew Marr on Sunday, Remainer and Labour leadership hopeful Keir Starmer admitted that “the argument has to move on” from Leave or a second referendum, but believes for him and his colleagues: “The argument, now, is can we insist on that close relationship with the EU?” Fellow contender Jess Phillips, however, has said that she would “fight” to rejoin the EU.
On those remarks, Mr Farage said: “I think if the next Labour leader hints that at some point we might rejoin the European Union, they will find a shrinking minority of this population that support that view and the vast majority of us saying, ‘for goodness’ sake, the war is over, let’s just get on with the rest of our lives!'”
The Leave campaigner said that post-Brexit, his party would be rebranded as the Reform Party, devoted to taking on reforming undemocratic aspects of the UK’s political system. While Mr Farage has discussed the Reform Party since November, a report from this week revealed that Prime Minister Johnson is tasking as part of a commission on the constitution to look into the future of the House of Lords and whether it should be replaced by a senate of regions and nations, giving a louder voice to areas outside of London and to the working classes.
Mr Farage told Hartley-Brewer: “We have a parliament that is not necessarily representative of the opinion in this country. We have an electoral system that is out of date with postal voting massively open to fraud and intimidation.
“We have a system of patronage and peerages whereby friends get rewarded, enemies get bought off and chucked in the House of Lords. That has no place in twenty-first-century Britain. I do think that the time and mood for genuine political change and reform is there.”
Asked whether he would rule out accepting a knighthood or a peerage, Mr Farage said: “I’m not for sale. That isn’t what I want to do.” However, he joked on whether that was a categorical “never”: “Anyone that ever says never is very, very stupid.”
He clarified: “I have no interest in doing that. I think the House of Lords needs to go. In the twenty-first century, let’s have an elected upper chamber. That would be a lot more democratic.”