Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has warned that “bully boys” like the next European Commission president will construct a more federalised European Union.
“The EU bully boys (and girls) are not pretending anymore,” Mr Farage wrote in The Telegraph on Friday. “A deeper and more centralised political union is to be built, with no dissent allowed.”
Remarking on Ursula von der Leyen’s recent confirmation as President of the European Commission by the European Parliament — where the former German defence minister was the only candidate on the ballot — Mr Farage called her a “fanatical federalist” whose appointment was “the result of a Franco-German stitch-up“.
“Von der Leyen has an incredibly ambitious programme for her five-year term. In 20 years of sitting in the Strasbourg chamber, I have never heard a speech like the one she gave this week, in which she set out an overt bid for the EU to take control of all kinds of arrangements inside individual nation-states, from an EU minimum wage to the harmonisation of corporation tax,” Mr Farage wrote.
“In terms of foreign policy, member states’ vetos must be removed so that a new European army can be deployed with a minimum of fuss. All aspects of the Union will be backed up by the rule of law, presided over by EU prosecutors,” he added, calling what the “EU fanatic” was planning an “updated form of Communism”.
During her speech on Tuesday, Mrs von der Leyen called for a “Green New Deal for Europe” which would force the bloc to cut carbon emissions drastically by 55 per cent by 2030, demanded “an EU-wide Rule of Law Mechanism” to punish countries deemed to have betrayed progressive European “values”, and hinted at greater strengthening of the “European Defence Union”, a proto-EU army.
However, Mr Farage assessed that the next president of the EU’s most powerful office could been a boon for Boris Johnson’s premiership, calling the German the “pin-up girl” for “any future Brexit campaign”.
He said: “In fact, by the end of her speech, I felt that Brexit was a little closer to being realised. Her vow to “stand ready” to delay Brexit tells us all we need to know.”