Farage: It is my destiny to fight for Leave
Former Ukip leader unveils plans to launch new party that will fight in European elections if exit is delayed
NIGEL FARAGE has said it is his “destiny” to fight for Brexit as he unveils his plans to launch a new political party to fight next year’s European Parliament elections if the Government delays Britain’s exit from the European Union.
The former leader of the UK Independence Party told The Sunday Telegraph that he believed he had “not fought my biggest battle yet” and would relish the battle at May’s Euro elections, which he expects to be held if Brexit is delayed.
Talks on his new party have been ongoing for months but have been stepped up in the past fortnight as the details of the Brexit deal have emerged.
Mr Farage, 54, said he had held talks with a number of high profile business people to stand for his new party. Its name was “to be confirmed”, he said.
Mr Farage, who quit as a member of Ukip last week sparking a number of other resignations by senior figures, said: “I sense within me I have not fought my biggest battle yet – that is how it feels. Whether it is happenstance, serendipity, destiny.
“I am not going to lie down and watch it go down the plug hole. I couldn’t do that. And I won’t do that. If there are European Parliament elections I am standing and I am thinking about vehicles do to that. I will be looking to get some high profile figures. I’m talking about something very different. I have sounded out a few people.”
Mr Farage believes there is a “55 to 45 per cent” chance of the UK participating in the European Parliament elections on May 23. He predicates the Parliamentary deadlock means negotiations will continue and Britain’s expected exit from the EU in March 2019 will be put back by up to two years.
Euro elections offer a better prospect for Mr Farage because MEPs are elected on a proportional representation system with seats allocated in proportion to a party’s share of the vote.
In 2014, Ukip, under Mr Farage, won the election with 24 MEPs and 27 per cent of the national vote. Yet in the 2015 General Election, Ukip won 4 million votes but not a single seat because of the vagaries of Westminster’s “first past the post” voting system.
The Sunday Telegraph disclosed in May that the Electoral Commission had been handed a budget of £829,000 to pay for its “activities relating to a European Parliamentary election in 2019”.
Mr Farage said his candidates would be “the most extraordinary slate of people you guys have ever seen. I am working on the concepts right now. It won’t be a one-off shot, it will be the birth of something much more remarkable than Ukip was.”
Mr Farage said he could not stand for Ukip because of the party’s swing to the Right to become an anti-Muslim party under Gerard Batten, its leader, who is holding a rally today with Tommy Robinson, the former English Defence League leader, in London.
Mr Farage said he had not planned a return to politics. He said: “My game plan had been to see Brexit through and move to America for four or five years. Trump is going to get re-elected so Washington DC is a good place.
“But I have always said that if the ball gets dropped on Brexit I will have no choice but to pick it up. It increasingly looks like that is the case.
“The reason we have got to where we are is cowardice in the Tory party. Those who I thought were on my side have been too cowardly. They have allowed everybody to do their worst.”
Mr Farage said that he would only guarantee not to stand again as a politician if Britain left without a deal, saying: “If we finish up with a no-deal Brexit, I will never stand again. My job will be done.”
Mr Farage’s other fear is a second referendum to break the deadlock in Parliament. He added: “I don’t want a second referendum but I don’t want a fire at home and I pay insurance.”
Mr Farage’s Leave Means Leave campaign is appointing regional organisers in preparation. “If there is a second referendum the first one becomes 1914-18, and this becomes 1940,” he said.