Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage warned that “after months of stalled negotiations, our resolve is being tested” on Brexit, and urged Prime Minister Boris Johnson to ensure that the UK remains free of European Union rules at the completion of the withdrawal process on December 31st.
Mr Farage said that he expects anti-Brexit campaigns to be continued by big businesses in Britain, pressuring the government to accept greater economic alignment along the lines of the Single Market and the Customs Union.
“But if we were to go down the weak and cowardly route we would arguably be in a worse place in economic terms than being in the EU,” Farage wrote in the Sunday Express.
“We would have to accept all of the rules that are made without having any influence of any kind at all. We would no doubt have to continue paying money to effectively be part of this club.”
“It would be Brexit in name only,” he pronounced.
Mr Farage said that when the United Kingdom completes the withdrawal process, the country must be “completely free of EU rules”, saying that “anything less than that would be a betrayal of the referendum vote and the huge general election victory”.
The arch Brexiteer said that if Johnson backtracks on the true intent of the Brexit movement, it would not only be incredibly damaging to the British public’s trust in democratic institutions, but would also be politically untenable for the Conservative Party.
“They have to know that we mean this. If Johnson was to fall at this last hurdle, he would find that the huge number of voters in the North who gave him his majority, had actually only lent their votes to the Conservative Party, and that they would desert him. Politically, I feel he has absolutely no choice,” he surmised.
Mr Farage did, however, heap some praise on the government’s chief Brexit negotiator, David Frost.
“Despite all my criticisms of the Conservative Party over the decades, I have to say I have been delighted with the actions and comments of our chief negotiator David Frost,” he wrote.
“After all the deceptions put upon us by Olly Robbins, it is heartening to hear Frost saying, again and again, we have to have a deal based on us being an independent country,” Farage added.
The leading Eurosceptic warned that the “greatest test” is still to come, however, noting that a realistic deadline to secure a trade deal with the European Union will be October, in order to permit time for the agreement to be ratified by European member state parliaments.
“Frost will face the EU, who are now feeling somewhat stronger than they were after the agreement reached for a Covid-19 package to help southern countries that were badly affected,” he warned. Farage added that Frost would also “face an EU which, through Chancellor Merkel and President Macron, feel that their project is back on track.”
Ultimately Mr Farage repeated the refrain that “no deal is better than a bad deal”, saying that any economic impact of a no-deal Brexit would be trivial in comparison to the fallout of the Chinese coronavirus and the ensuing national lockdown.
“The referendum was a decisive moment in the history of our islands. It was the moment we chose to be free,” Farage declared.
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