Nigel Farage has said that the actions of governments across Europe over coronavirus “show the concept of solidarity, so championed by the EU and their globalist friends, now counts for nothing. We are all nationalists now.”
President Donald Trump’s recent decision to bar entry from Europe’s borderless Schengen Area shows that he is prioritising Americans’ health concerns over the economy.
European politicians heavily criticised President Trump’s decision as “nationalistic”, opining that “viruses do not recognise borders”, while the European Commission said that the EU “disapproves” of the American leader’s “unilateral” decision made “without consultation” of Brussel’s bureaucrats.
The Brexit Party leader pointed out that European governments are themselves acting unilaterally — nationalistically — across the bloc, without the authority of Brussels — threatening the would-be superstate’s central mythology that it alone can guarantee Europeans’ collective safety.
“Everybody is looking after Number One. Even if it is understandable for individual nations to focus on their own people, the idea of a bloc such as the EU being willing or able to guarantee the safety and security of all of its members is surely shattered,” Mr Farage wrote in The Telegraph.
Criticising one of the jewels in the crown of the European Union — the passport-free Schengen Area — Mr Farage observed: “Austria has closed its border with Italy unless Italians can show a certificate of clear health. Given that it is virtually impossible for anybody to prove good health thanks to testing only taking place when people show physical symptoms of the virus, the question must be asked: what price the Schengen Zone now?”
However, Mr Farage also condemned Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, for what he sees as a lack of leadership by failing to take more aggressive measures against coronavirus — and particularly for the apparent failure to screen arrivals from Milan on Sunday after the Italian region of Lombardy had declared a state of emergency.
He wrote: “From a government that is still scrambling to get a grip on this crisis and to lead, this was simply negligent. People will forgive a leader who is seen to have done his best in very difficult circumstances. Donald Trump appears to have seen which way the wind is blowing. What they will not forgive is a leader who fails to take proper care of his people. Boris Johnson needs to take heed very quickly. ”
He added that even if President Trump’s omission of the United Kingdom from his travel ban “is testament to our new status as an independent country… I suspect it will not be long before Britain is also on the no-fly list.”
The Brexiteer further criticised Johnson’s government for its scientific expert claiming that 60 per cent of Britons need to catch the Wuhan virus to develop “herd immunity”, as coronavirus could return annually like the winter flu.
Mr Farage wrote on Friday: “So government policy is that it is desirable for Covid-19 to kill hundreds of thousands of people so that we develop herd immunity. Just can’t believe it.”