Farage’s ‘New Radicals’ Will Push for Political Reform After Brexit

Brexit party leader Nigel Farage speaks at a Brexit Party press conference in central Lond
TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images
Victoria Friedman

Nigel Farage has said that after Brexit, he and his party’s “new radicals” will push for “genuine reform” of the British political system.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday, the Brexit Party leader said: “If we get Brexit, then the idea that British politics goes back to where it’s been is an anathema.”

Mr Farage said that he wanted “genuine reform” of the voting system, including reforming postal voting and scrapping the House of Lords. “We are the new radicals and we want genuine change,” he said.

The Leave campaigner had revealed that he had registered the Reform Party if the UK does leave the EU, with the rebranded movement being a vehicle to “campaign to change politics for good”.

While Mr Farage believes that it is possible for the Brexit Party to gain a few seats in the election, he told BBC listeners not to underestimate a small party’s ability to grow in influence, saying “a breakthrough is a breakthrough”.

Reflecting on his time as the leader of UKIP, Farage said: “There were three of us elected in the European Parliament 20 years ago for UKIP which nobody ever heard of and we were able to use that base to build a party to force a referendum. So breakthroughs numerically do not have to be very big to be significant.”

On the success of the Brexit Party, which was only launched in April and went on to win May’s European Parliament elections, he said: “We tried the Brexit Party, won the European elections, got rid of the worst prime minister in living memory, and reset the agenda. I think we have stopped a second referendum from happening because that looked pretty inevitable six or eight months ago.”

— Farage: A real Brexit will not happen without Brexit Party MPs —

During a televised debate on Monday evening, Mr Farage said that he would be spoiling his election ballot on Thursday because Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s EU-approved exit treaty was “not Brexit”.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4 about this decision, Mr Farage said that it was important for Britons to elect Brexit Party MPs in order to hold Johnson to account and make sure the country gets a “realistic” Brexit.

“If we pass the Brexit treaty, this doesn’t get Brexit done. It takes us into years [of negotiations with the EU]. This ‘oven-ready’ deal will give us indigestion. I’m very disappointed in the direction they are taking,” the MEP said.

Mr Farage continued: “Unless we get a Brexit Party voice in the House of Commons, we are not going to get a realistic Brexit because he’ll push through this new EU treaty as it is.”

Confident that the Tories will win a majority, he, however, warned: “We are going to get Brexit. The question is: will it be recognisable to the 14.7 million voters?”

Writing in The Telegraph on Monday evening, the Brexit Party leader urged Britons to vote tactically in Labour Leave areas — notably those in the north and that have not returned a Conservative MP in decades.

“Voting for the Brexit Party in these areas would deliver a death blow to Corbyn’s Labour Party, and what a good thing that would be,” he said.

Brexit Party MPs are also vital, Mr Farage wrote, to ensure Prime Minister Johnson is “held to account” during negotiations with the hardline European negotiators.

He concluded: “The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has already indicated that he wants the next stage of the process to last for at least three years. It’s going to need a strong and determined Prime Minister and parliament to resist Barnier and go for a clean break Brexit.

“I don’t believe that will happen unless the Brexit Party has seats in the next parliament.”

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