Brexit, stage right: Farage quits amid EU vote fallout
UKIP leader becomes third major political figure to step aside
LONDON— Nigel Farage, the man credited by many with pressing the British government into holding a referendum on the European Union, announced Monday that he was standing down as leader of the populist, right-wing U.K. Independence Party.
Farage, 52, said that he had “done my bit,” achieved his central ambition and left his party in a “pretty good place” in the wake of Britain’s vote June 23 to quit the 28-nation bloc.
“I have never been, and I have never wanted to be, a career politician,” he said. “My aim of being in politics was to get Britain out of the European Union.”
Monday was not the first time Farage said he would quit the party leadership: he made a similar promise after the 2015 general election — when he failed to win a seat in the British Parliament — only to change his mind.
As a member of the U.K. Independence Party, Farage has campaigned for more than 15 years to leave the European Union, increasingly highlighting the issue of immigration.
His success alarmed lawmakers of the Conservative Party of British Prime Minister David Cameron, who, under pressure, promised in 2013 to call an in-or-out referendum.
After the Conservatives’ surprising victory in last year’s general election, Cameron was compelled to make good on that promise.
Farage remains a member of the European Parliament, to which he was first elected in 1999. On June 28, after the referendum, Farage taunted fellow lawmakers in Brussels.
“When I came here17 years ago and said I wanted to lead a campaign to get Britain to leave the European Union, you all laughed at me,” he said to jeers and groans. “Well, you’re not laughing now.”
His colleagues in the European Parliament were not sorry to see him go. “#NigelFarage is the latest coward to abandon the chaos he is responsible for,” Manfred Weber, a German member of the European Parliament who has denounced Farage as a demagogue, wrote on Twitter. “This shows that he has no credibility at all.”
Farage had clashed with Douglas Carswell, the only member of his party to win a seat in the British Parliament in elections last year. Carswell reacted to Farage’s an- nouncement Monday by posting a smiley face emoji on Twitter.
Also Monday, two of the five candidates to lead the Conservative Party — and by extension, to succeed Cameron, who has announced his intention to step down by October — presented their case to the party’s lawmakers and supporters.
One of the two candidates, Andrea Leadsom, a minister for energy and climate change who has a back- ground in finance, focused on her support for the leave campaign.
“The nations and peoples of Europe remain our close friends, our staunch allies and our key trading partners,” Leadsom said.
“I believe, however, that our vote to leave the EU will be a positive wakeup call for those European elites who have been far too complacent about youth unemployment that is wrecking lives in southern Europe; about declining share of world trade that threatens Europe’s progress; and about the failure of the Brussels machine to respond to globalization.”
Another candidate, Liam Fox, a former defence secretary, said that Britain should complete its departure from the European Union by 2019.
Cameron has refused to activate the legal mechanism for Britain’s departure from the bloc, leaving the decision on how and when to do so to his successor.
Once the mechanism, known as Article 50, is invoked, Britain will have two years to complete negotiations on the terms and conditions of its withdrawal with the other members of the European Union.
Both Leadsom and Fox tried Monday to address growing concerns about the status of EU citizens who now live in Britain.
Leadsom said, “There is no way they will be bargaining chips (in) our negotiations,” while Fox said they should have “full rights to remain,” even as future migration is curtailed.
The other candidates for the party’s leadership are Theresa May, the home secretary; Michael Gove, the justice secretary; and Stephen Crabb, the work and pensions secretary. A series of votes will begin Tuesday, leading to the selection of two finalists. The favourite to replace Cameron, prominent leave campaigner Boris Johnson, declined to stand for the Conservative leadership. The opposition Labour Party is having its own troubles, with leader Jeremy Corbyn clinging to office despite having lost a confidence vote by his party’s lawmakers.