As Prime Minister Theresa May and members of the British Parliament dither and delay the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union, one of the Brexit movement’s founding fathers is shaking up British politics yet again. Nigel Farage, the former leader of the U.K. Independence Party (UKIP), is now launching a new party. On Friday, the brand-new Brexit Party, championed by Farage, launched its campaign for next month’s EU elections, scheduled for May 23 in the U.K.
While addressing supporters at a metalworking factory in the pro-Brexit city of Coventry, Farage laid out his case for the new party, claiming he and the new Brexit Party “will change politics for good” in the U.K.
“What we’ve seen over the last two weeks is the willful betrayal of the greatest democratic exercise in the history of this nation,” Farage stated. He then blasted Parliament and the prime minister, saying, “We are lions led by donkeys.”
The controversial British politician, famous for his take-no-prisoners attitude, vowed that that boldness would continue. “I said that if I did come back into the political fray it would be No more Mr. Nice Guy and I mean it,” Farage declared.
The only thing that Prime Minister May has accomplished regarding Brexit is to twice delay it. She got the European Union to move off the original March 29 leave date, and has now succeeded in pushing it back to October 31 of this year, unless her deal — which has already been voted down by Parliament three times — passes sometime before then.
Farage also announced Annunziata Rees-Mogg — the sister of Jacob Rees-Mogg, a prominent Tory Brexiteer — as a Brexit Party candidate. Rees-Mogg announced she was leaving the Tory Party over its failure in handling Brexit. Previously, she had campaigned for the Tories in every election since 1987.
“My country needs to be recognized in the democratic way that it has called for,” Rees-Mogg said. “Our politicians need to listen to what the people have said.”
Another former Tory, Quidnet Capital Partners CEO Richard Tice, will chair the new party. “Enough is enough,” declared Tice, who campaigned vigorously for Brexit in 2016. “It’s time we took on the vested interests, it’s time we took on the establishment, it’s time we took on the civil service.”
According to Farage, the new Brexit Party isn’t strictly about Brexit and the upcoming EU elections, but plans to bring “revolution” to British politics.
Farage told Good Morning Britain, “Westminster used to be known as the Mother of Parliaments and here we are, behaving, frankly, like a banana republic, ignoring the views of the people. We want to bring democracy back to this country, we want to bring trust back to this country, because if trust breaks down between the governors and the governed, that can’t be a healthy thing for our society.”
“Don’t think of this as the Brexit Party just standing in the European elections,” Farage continued. “This is just the beginning of a new political movement. We want a political revolution in this country. The two-party system is broken. It doesn’t work and, frankly, the House of Commons no longer represents this country.”
Officials from all the U.K. parties are now preparing for EU elections slated for next month — a situation that most parties felt unfathomable just a few months previously. Farage currently sits as one of the 73 UK members of the European Parliament (MEPs) representing the UK’s Southeast Region, which includes the Isle of Wight, East and West Sussex, Hampshire, and Kent.
Farage left UKIP in December of 2018 over his belief that UKIP had become too right-wing, with its embrace of British provocateur Tommy Robinson and what Farage called “anti-Muslim” policies.
Robinson was arrested, tried, and imprisoned all within 24 hours last May on charges that he defied a gag-order for live-streaming outside a courthouse where a trial of a group of Muslim men accused of “grooming” hundreds of British schoolgirls for prostitution was ongoing. Robinson was released in August by a judge. who ruled that the original court had rushed the trial and not allowed Robinson the opportunity to defend himself.
Robinson is a polarizing figure, and Farage didn’t want to be associated with him. “The very idea of Tommy Robinson being at the center of the Brexit debate is too awful to contemplate,” Farage said at the time he left UKIP.
Still, Farage believes his new Brexit Party embraces all the good of UKIP but without the alleged bigotry he believes that UKIP now exhibits. “In terms of policy, there’s no difference [to UKIP], but in terms of personnel there is a vast difference,” Farage told BBC Radio 4.
The current leader of UKIP, Gerard Batten, vehemently disagrees. In response to Farage’s claim of no policy differences, he tweeted, “That is a lie. UKIP has a manifesto and policies. Farage’s party is just a vehicle for him. It is not a [real] political party. It’s only purpose is to reelect him. His party is a Tory/Establishment safety valve. Yes, there is a difference — our people aren’t self-serving hypocrites.”
Hopefully, UKIP, the new Brexit Party, and the other members of the Conservative coalition can put aside their differences long enough to deliver a now-overdue Brexit to the people who voted to leave the globalist EU in 2016.
Photo: AP Images
