Farage: ‘Radicalised’ Remainers Are Breaking down the Democratic System

Pro-European Union, (EU), anti-Brexit demonstrators wear masks featuring the EU flag outsi
DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty
Victoria Friedman

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has warned that “radicalised” Remainers threaten to break down the UK’s democratic system.

Mr Farage made the comments after he was attacked by an individual who threw a milkshake at him on Monday, telling The Telegraph, “Physical assault is now considered acceptable — they have a view, they are right … they feel entitled to behave like this. Something has gone very badly wrong.”

Similar attacks have also committed against independent MEP candidate Tommy Robinson and UKIP MEP candidate Carl Benjamin in recent weeks.

Mr Farage told the newspaper that the “sheer venom of the other side” is beginning to impede on his ability to conduct his campaigning as a political figure, saying that “the sheer acceptance of violence means you cannot carry on with normal democratic campaigning activity.”

“For a civilised democracy to function you have to have losers’ consent in elections. That is how it works. Since the referendum we have had some very senior figures in public life reject the result, do their best to stop it and make us vote again.

“When your democratic system breaks down civility breaks down with it. There is a radicalised group of people out there who think their view is morally superior to everybody else’s and they are entitled to do anything to get their way,” he added.

The warning comes after Mr Farage told Breitbart London on Monday during a rally in Exeter that British democracy was being damaged by attempts from politicians and activists to overturn the results of the June 2016 referendum. Remarking that democracy was being “traduced”, Mr Farage said:

“A series of promises have been broken; the greatest democratic exercise in British history has been betrayed.

“This is the fightback, and I hope we’re going to stun everybody on Thursday, not with a one-off protest vote, but the beginning of a new political movement that is going to radically change the whole system, and the face of politics in Britain. That’s how ambitious I am,” he said.

Public fatigue with the two-party system is predicted to manifest in Thursday’s European Parliament election — an election, by rights, Britons should not be taking part in given they voted to leave the EU nearly three years ago and were promised an exit date of March 29th — with Conservative and Labour voters diverging from the mainstream parties to the anti-establishment ones.

Recent YouGov data points to only 35 per cent of those who voted for Labour in the 2017 General Election planning to do so again in this week’s vote, with voters instead heading towards the pro-Remain Liberal Democrats (21 per cent) and the Greens (16 per cent), whilst 14 per cent are likely to vote for the Brexit Party.

The situation appears far worse for the Conservative Party, with only 20 per cent of GE 2017 voters saying they will vote again for the Tories with an astonishing 62 per cent saying they are planning to switch their allegiance to the Brexit Party.

Earlier this month, Mr Farage said that a “peaceful political revolution” at the ballot box will overturn the UK’s “broken” and “out of touch” political system, and restore the country’s faith in democracy.

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