The godfather of Brexit, Nigel Farage, swung by New York yesterday on behalf of World For Brexit, a new American-led group hoping to help push Brexit across the finish line.
Farage, the leader of the new Brexit party, which crushed the Conservatives a few weeks ago in elections for the European Parliament in which he sits, scoffs at the new October 31 deadline for Brexit.
Hours earlier, Boris Johnson gave his first speech as Prime Minister on the doorstep of Number 10 Downing Street , saying:
We are going to fulfil the repeated promises of Parliament to the people and come out of the EU on October 31, no ifs or buts. And we will do a new deal, a better deal that will maximize the opportunities of Brexit while allowing us to develop a new and exciting partnership with the rest of Europe based on free trade and mutual support. I have every confidence that in 99 days time we will have cracked it.
After taking some cracks at the BBC-led media for its relentless doomsaying on Brexit, Farage sounded some doubts about the latest deadline. “I’m pleased that Boris has won today. I really am,” he said.
I’m pleased that he’s appointed some good people. He tells us that we’re leaving on the 31st of October. But Theresa May told us 108 times we were leaving on the 29th of March. I don’t think there’s much chance of us leaving on the 31st of October. It isn’t gonna happen. Why? Because too much of our Establishment is against it. Brexit will happen in the end because the British people have made their minds up and at some point, at some point, we’ll get different men and women representing us in Parliament.
But to think because the new Prime Minister makes one good speech that this battle is over — it’s not. This is a great, giant, historic battle. It doesn’t just affect the United Kingdom, it affects the whole of Western democracy. Now that I’m back I will spend every waking hour I’ve got fighting for this to happen.
Farage’s brand-new Brexit party could cause Johnson’s Tories a big headache should there be yet another general election in Britain. (The last one was last year.) Brexit could potentially divide right-leaning voters enough to hand the premiership to the dim but resolute leftist Jeremy Corbyn. Farage relishes his role as potential kingmaker. “The Conservative Party treat me as something of a pariah,” he said. Put the two parties together, though, and there is the potential to not only deliver Brexit but “smash hard-line Socialism in Britain. And that’s rather a good idea, isn’t it?” Yet “for me at the moment, to trust anything the Conservatives say is very, very difficult . . . If Boris was to seek a deal with me, there would be quite a few of the Conservative party who would leave and it’d cause an historic split.
But logically at some point there has to be a realignment of British politics….Now people are saying, ‘I’m a Leaver, I’m a Remainer’ before they’re saying, ‘I’m Labour’ or ‘Conservative.’ I think a historic realignment of British politics is coming. I hope to be the catalyst for that. They can say what they want at the moment but at some point Boris will realize, without me, he cannot win. And I’ll tell you this: If Boris does the right thing, and is brave, I will support him. I will be the best friend he’s got. If Boris does a Theresa May, and drops the ball, I will be the worst enemy he’s ever had and I will attempt in those dark circumstances to get the Brexit party to replace the modern-day Conservative party.
Farage met on Tuesday with President Trump, whom he described as a hearty and like-minded impassioned Euroskeptic.