A second Brexit vote could be on way: Farage
LEADING Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage has suggested that a second referendum on Brexit could be on the way.
Speaking to the Irish Mail on Sunday at a Dublin event yesterday, the former Ukip leader said that because of the weakness of the minority Conservative government, the UK could soon face a crisis, triggering a second referendum.
He said: ‘We may have to do this all over again.
‘I pray we don’t but we may have to.’
In a TV interview last month, Mr Farage complained about the continuing opposition to Brexit expressed by political figures including former prime minister Tony Blair and former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.
He said of them: ‘They will go on whingeing and whining all through this process. Maybe, just maybe, we should have a second referendum on EU membership. I think that If you had a second referendum, the percentage that would vote to leave would be very much bigger than it was last time.’
However, hours later he rowed back, saying he didn’t want a second referendum and was just trying to warn Leave voters that it was possible and to energise them to keep pressure on the British government to deliver Brexit.
A YouGov poll carried out at the start of this week found the biggest margin of British voters yet, 46% to 40%, think the UK is wrong to leave the EU.
When asked yesterday if a Brexit deal should be put to the people, Mr Farage said the shifting polls reflected a weariness with prime minister Theresa May’s government and the lack of direction on Brexit.
He said: ‘I fear that without that strong leadership, it’s going to be very difficult to get any deal approved by parliament and we may well face a crisis in the next year – a general election, another referendum, it’s not impossible.’
In recent months, his former party has been in the papers for the wrong reasons, as new leader Henry Bolton’s private life has hit the headlines.
After splitting with his wife in July of last year, the 54-year-old got together with Jo Marney, a Brexitbacking blonde model 29 years his junior.
Last month, a string of racist text messages sent by Ms Marney was made public. Ms Marney was suspended from Ukip and Mr Bolton ended his relationship with her to save his leadership.
Mr Farage said yesterday: ‘Ukip’s problem at the moment isn’t extremism, it’s incompetence.’
Mr Farage was in Dublin to speak at Trinity College and at a conference called Irexit: Freedom to Prosper, where he called for an antiEU political party to be set up in Ireland.
‘I pray we don’t but we may have to’ ‘Ukip’s problem is incompetence’