Speaking from Blenheim Palace, the birthplace and ancestral home of British wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill, Nigel Farage acknowledged that the United Kingdom faces many struggles, many of which are self-imposed by both Westminster establishment parties, but also stressed that there are signs of optimism heading into the new year.
In a message seemingly aesthetically modelled after those typically given by either the Monarch or prime minister, the Member of Parliament for Clacton-on-Sea noted that 2024 was the year in which he, along with four others, established a “bridgehead” in the House of Commons for Reform UK and won over four million votes in July, despite having only a few weeks to prepare for the snap election called early by Rishi Sunak.
“I think everybody acknowledges that with just a handful of MPs, we’ve made a real impact over the course of these last six months, and everything we do is based on values, and those values are around the things that matter to us; family, community, and country. They’re the things that got me back in politics,” Farage said.
But such values are under threat, he warned, following decades of “appalling” leadership from the Conservative and Labour parties, with both parties jettisoning their traditional principles in favour of Blairite-style globalism.
“We are in societal decline, we are in economic decline, most people are getting poorer. With every year that passes, we are losing any sense of national identity, and we are actually teaching kids at school that people like Winston Churchill, born in this Palace, are bad people and that our country’s history is something to be ashamed of,” he lamented.
Farage said that he was also motivated to return to frontline politics after the Tories “completely squandered” Brexit by failing to deliver on key promises of the Leave campaign, notably reducing migration, because they “never believed in it
but used it for electoral advantage in 2019.”
Meanwhile, he warned that the insistence of both legacy parties on pursuing the ‘net zero’ green agenda will “do nothing
more than put up everybody’s bills and close down British manufacturing.”
However, in a point of optimism, Farage hailed the return to power of his long-time ally and friend Donald Trump, which populists across Europe have taken as a sign that political change is possible.
He also predicted that Trump coming back to the White House would bode well for the West as it grapples with significant international challenges, saying: “If history teaches us one thing, it is that dictators and bad guys only respect strength and let’s face it without America we are defenceless.”
There is also a light at the end of the tunnel for Britain, Farage predicted, with his upstart party surging in the polls and reportedly surpassing the centuries-old Conservative Party in paid members. This week, Reform disclosed that, with thousands of new sign-ups over the holidays, there are now over 150,000 paid party members, more than 18,000 more than the latest figures from the Tories.
“There is a buzz there is an energy, there is an optimism, we’re not negative,” Farage said. “Yes, we know the other lot made an absolute mess of it, that Labour and Conservative are virtually the uni-party. We believe we can turn this country around by 180 degrees.”
But, in a call to action, the populist leader called on the public to join the “People’s Army” and to make joining Reform UK a New Year’s resolution, declaring: “Let’s make Britain great again. Happy New Year.”
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