Farage Calls Burnham's Brexit Reopening the Biggest Boost of His Career
Nigel Farage said the Prime Minister had handed him “the biggest boost in my career” by reviving the European question, and had opened “a huge flank” to Reform across the red wall. Addressing hundreds of supporters at Doncaster racecourse, at the first of a series of rallies on what the party would do in its first hundred days, he said: “Today is when our general election campaign starts.”
His answer to the polling is the argument the referendum was won on. Dismissing surveys showing as much as 59% now favour rejoining, he said: “Of course they do, until you tell them it’ll cost 25bn quid a year, until you tell him it’ll mean joining Schengen, until he tells them it will mean actually having to recommit to joining the euro.” That is a bet that support for rejoining is soft and collapses once terms are attached, and it is the same bet he made in 2016. His reading of the politics is that the Prime Minister has calculated that warmer language on Europe wins back voters from the Greens in the cities, while costing him in the north and Midlands: “Here in Doncaster and across the red wall in the north and Midlands, I think he’s opened up a huge flank to us.” Watch whether Downing Street narrows its four options before the Brussels summit next month.