Farage claims pro-brexit impetus
• British euroskeptic Nigel Farage said Monday that his new Brexit Party’s victory in the European election should spur Britain to leave the European Union even without a divorce deal — a call echoed by many senior Conservatives, stung by their party’s humiliating defeat.
Farage’s single-issue party and pro-eu forces combined to trounce Britain’s two dominant political parties in the European Parliament election, as angry voters blamed the ruling Conservatives and the opposition Labour Party for the country’s Brexit impasse.
With results announced Monday for all regions in the U.K. except Northern Ireland, the Brexit Party had won 29 of the 73 British EU seats up for grabs and almost a third of the votes. On the pro-eu side, the Liberal Democrats took 20 per cent of the vote and 16 seats — a dramatic increase from the single seat in won in the last EU election in 2014.
The opposition Labour Party came third with 14.1 per cent, followed by the pro-european environmentalist Greens, who captured nearly 12.1 per cent. The Conservatives — apparently blamed by voters for failing to deliver Brexit in March as planned — were in fifth with under 10 per cent of the vote.
British Prime Minister Theresa May, who is stepping down as Conservative leader next month after failing to deliver Brexit, said the “disappointing” result of the European vote “shows the importance of finding a Brexit deal, and I sincerely hope these results focus minds in Parliament.”
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Boris Johnson, the current favourite to replace May, said unless the Conservatives delivered on Brexit, the electorate would rightly punish them.
“I predict a rout,” he wrote. “In this miserable election that should never have taken place, for a Euro-parliament that should no longer represent us, the voters are delivering a crushing rebuke to the Government — in fact, to both major parties.
A triumphant Farage said he doubted the Conservatives would be able to take Britain out of the 28-nation bloc on the currently scheduled date of Oct. 31.
He said his party — which currently has no members and no policies apart from leaving the EU — would “stun everybody” in the next British general election if the country didn’t leave the EU on time.