𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Andy Burnham is the biggest threat to Brexit yet, Nigel Farage has warned. He says the wannabe Labour leader will jeopardise our hard won freedoms if he ousts Sir Keir Starmer. The Reform UK leader’s stark message comes as voters go to the polls for Thursday’s crunch by-election, the result of which is widely expected to trigger the Prime Minister’s downfall. Speaking exclusively to the Express, Mr Farage said he believes the Greater Manchester Mayor could unpick Brexit “further” than the man he wants to replace.

Delivering his most forthright assessment of the state of the nation so far, he also claimed longstanding government failures, which have worsened since we left the EU, mean there is just 10 years to “save Britain” otherwise “we’ll become a third world country”. And Mr Farage suggested he would need to serve “two terms” as Prime Minister to turn the country around.

But it’s Brexit, particularly Mr Burnham’s flip-flopping on the issue – he previously said he hopes Britain will “rejoin” the EU in his lifetime but recently reversed his position to curry-favour with Leave voters in the Makerfield constituency he’s trying to win – that gets the Reform leader most exorcised.

“Starmer was a threat to Brexit, the whole Labour government’s a threat to Brexit,” he said. “They’ve never ever accepted it, they fought against the will of the people. They’re realigning us with various parts of the European project, taking away our choices in a number of areas, and Burnham could possibly take that further.”

His blistering attack came during a special episode of our weekday news show, the Daily Expresso, recorded in Mr Farage’s Clacton constituency to mark the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum next Tuesday.

Mr Farage told presenter Mark Dolan that repeated governments have failed to seize on the benefits of Brexit, leaving the UK in a perilous situation. He suggested his dramatic political comeback, two years ago, was partly to save the country from going down the plughole.

“I thought at that time that I was perhaps the only person in British politics, or going back into British politics, who frankly had the courage to stand up and say what needs to be said in areas that others find too difficult,” he said.

“I still think right now that I’m the right person to lead this movement. I still believe right now I’m the best person we’ve got to try to win a general election, to get in and get into office and start to begin the kind of radical change that we need. Otherwise, within a decade, we will be a third world country.”

Asked if he thinks we’ve got 10 years to save Britain, he added: “Yeah, oh, we’re done.”

An economy like Greece, or like Greece has been for many years, a divided society, those that are well off living in gated communities because of fear of crime, our bright 25 to 35 year olds fleeing en-masse abroad, taking all their talent, which has already started.”

This coming Tuesday marks 10 years since the historic Brexit referendum when, on June 2023, 2016, some 17.4 million people voted for Britain to leave the European Union. The UK officially exited the bloc on January 31, 2020, after four years of years of bitter wrangling.

But critics have accused both Conservative and Labour governments of failing to make the most of Brexit, particularly on immigration and the economy, since our departure. Reflecting on what has gone right and wrong, Mr Farage, a leading architect of Brexit, said: “We know it’s not the perfect Brexit, but we’re out. Constitutionally, we’re out, and it’s not going to get reversed.

“We’re not going to rejoin, even any attempt to rejoin. They [the EU] would demand terms such as a cast iron commitment to join the euro, etc. Free movement isn’t going to happen, it’s politically impossible. It would be an electoral catastrophe.”

He said that Britain, under Boris Johnson, led the way in helping Ukraine because of being free from the clutches of Brussels.

“I do think in the world we stand a bit taller because of Brexit,” he said. “I think where we’ve chosen to use our freedoms, for example, the vaccine rollout again, whether you agree with it or not, we were able to move quickly. We were not held back by the European agency, so they’re examples of what you can do with Brexit, and of course, the AUKUS [submarine deal with the US and Australia] deal as well, which is phenomenal.”

Mr Farage blasted doomladen economic predictions of Brexit as “utter rot” and said the UK’s trade around the world has been able to grow more quickly than the rest of the Eurozone. But he said there have been “big disappointments” such as the failure to secure our borders.

While legal migration is starting to come down following a massive surge in the aftermath of Brexit, the number of illegal migrants arriving on our shores shows no sign of slowing. The Reform leader pulls no punches in pinning the blame on Boris Johnson for “betraying” that part of Brexit.

“The ‘Boriswave’ is economically going to be proved disastrous to us over the course of the next decades – 300,400 billion pounds over a generation.

“Some 3.8 million came in, only 20% came on work permits, and so we had the freedom to do something about it, but we chose to do the opposite, and that’s angered people, and you know we could walk out now into the street and ask Joe Public, 10 years on, is it what you thought it would be, and a lot would say no, I’m very disappointed.

“It wasn’t wrong to vote for Brexit, and it would be entirely wrong to go back in, but we haven’t had that basic promise delivered, so it’s a mixed bag, 10 years on, however, constitutionally we are out. Constitutionally, we have these freedoms, and we can put it right. We need to make Britain, Britain again.”

Mr Farage promised to reverse all of Labour’s Brexit reverses if he becomes Prime Minister and promised that leaving the European Convention on Human Rights would be one of the first things he would do.

The Daily Express was the first and only national newspaper to call for Britain to leave the EU. Earlier this year we launched a campaign demanding that Sir Keir “Gives Us a Proper Brexit” in the run-up to the referendum anniversary.

Mr Farage, along with Mr Johnson, Kemi Badenoch and Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg have backed our crusade, agreeing that Labour is failing to capitalise on Britain’s liberation from the EU six years ago. It calls on Britain to leave the ECHR – so often abused by migrants resisting deportation. We are also demanding for the red tape hobbling businesses to be slashed and a 12-mile exclusion zone around the UK for British vessels only.

Sir Keir has been hellbent on unpicking Brexit ever since he was handed the keys to No 10. He has kept pushing for tighter post-Brexit economic relations with the bloc and said he wants to “go further” in moving Britain closer to the EU single market.

Labour’s election manifesto pledged not to rejoin the EU single market or customs union. The government will push for closer ties with the bloc at the next UK-EU summit on July 22. Both Mr Burnham and Sir Keir have been approached for a response to Mr Farage’s remarks.