Brexit advocate calls it ‘the battle for our independence’
Brexit advocate Nigel Farage said Sunday that Britain’s departure from the European Union is inevitable but it’s unclear what shape it will take.
“This is the battle for our independence,” Farage said in an interview on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”
Farage, a passionate early advocate for Britain’s withdrawal from the EU, now heads the Brexit Party. Britain is holding a general election Dec. 12; the outcome is likely to determine what shape Brexit takes.
"The debate now isn't whether we get Brexit; it's whether it's Brexit in name only or something meaningful," Farage told Zakaria.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson‘s Tories are favored to win the election. Farage split with them earlier this year because, he said, Johnson’s Brexit proposal does not go far enough. Farage, however, did make it clear that he finds Johnson far more palatable than his predecessor, Theresa May, whom he called the worst prime minister since Lord North, who was the leader at the time of the American Revolution.
“She was pretty hopeless,” he said.
Farage rejected Zakaria‘s suggestion that the idea of Brexit meant that Britain was seeking to withdraw from the world, calling that notion “utter rubbish“ over and over. He said it is not a matter of isolationism but of regaining control of the nation’s quality of life.
“I view Brexit as the opportunity to reach out to the world. Brexit is about us reasserting our place in the world,” Farage said.
He added: “You know, we’ve become nothing. We’re becoming a province of a United States of Europe. I think we’re better than that.“
