Mogg: Farage ‘Admirable’, British ‘Like Gulliver, Tied Down by Feeble, Feckless Politicians’

Jack Montgomery

Leading Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg praised Nigel Farage and denounced Jeremy Corbyn in a barnstorming speech in Manchester.

Mr Rees-Mogg, an eccentric but popular Tory MP noted for his old-fashioned mannerisms and turn of phrase, entered Cabinet as Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of Her Majesty’s Privy Council when Boris Johnson became Prime Minister.

He has become one Mr Johnson’s most prominent frontbenchers since then, aided in no small part by his larger than life persona and reputation as a committed eurosceptic, and was in fine form at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, saying that the Brexit-voting British were feeling “a bit like Gulliver, tied down at Lilliput”, referring to the titular character in Jonathan Swift’s eighteenth-century novel Gulliver’s Travels, who was taken prisoner by a race of tiny people after being washed onto an unfamiliar shore after a shipwreck.

“Tied down by a rag-tag motley collection of feeble, footling, feckless politicians,” Rees-Mogg continued.

“All in desperate pursuit of a single unworthy aim: to renege on the solemn promise they made to the British people, and to try to cancel the largest single democratic mandate in our history.”

Rees-Mogg also had harsh words for the “Marxist” leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, “a man who spent his career in the division lobbies as a eurosceptic, with our great heroes Iain Duncan Smith, Bill Cash, and John Redwood, voting again the European Union — and he’s campaigned for Remain!”

The Somerset MPs denounced the Labour leader’s “Surrender Act”, also known as the Benn Act, rammed through the House of Commons in a few hours, which requires the Prime Minister to ask for another Brexit delay and to accept whatever extension the President of the European Council offers him.

He also denounced Labour’s current Brexit policy, which he credited to Blairite MP Keir Starmer — “poised as if Brutus, stiletto in hand, awaiting the moment to strike” the Labour leader — of negotiating a new Brexit deal with the European Union and then offering it to the British people in another referendum, in which Labour would advocate they reject it in favour of remaining in the EU.

Remain-backing Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow, too, was criticised for having “damaged the standing of the House in the eyes of the British public to its lowest point in British history.”

Rees-Mogg also praised Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, who has been seeking an electoral non-aggression pact with the Tories, as “in many ways admirable”, as well as his sister Annunziata — who is an MEP for Mr Farage’s party.

He added, however, in classic Tory fashion, that voting for the Brexit Party could only take votes away from the Tories and risk a Corbyn government — although in many Leave-voting seats in Labour’s working-class heartlands it is the Brexit Party, rather than the Tories, who are the main challengers, and it is the Tories’ refusal to stand aside in such areas that increases the likelihood of their returning Remain MPs.

Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBMontgomery
Follow Breitbart London on Facebook: Breitbart London

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.