Nigel Farage, a British politician who was one of the main protagonists of the campaign who had supported the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union, admitted that so far the country has not obtained economic benefits from Brexit. In an interview with BBC aired Monday night Farage did not disavow Brexit, but strongly criticized the way it was implemented.
Brexit was a failure, we didn’t get it done as we should have and the Conservatives have let us down very, very much. What Brexit has shown is that our politicians are nearly as useless as the Commissioners in Brussels. We mishandled the exit in every aspect.
Farage was from 2010 to 2016 the leader of UKIP, the independence party of the United Kingdom and from 2019 to 2021 the leader of the Brexit Party, which reached over 30 percent of the vote in the 2019 European elections. UKIP is the party that most of all he had campaigned for the exit from the European Union, and had become politically relevant precisely by championing the cause of a referendum. Farage has no longer held political roles since 2021, is honorary president of the Reform UK party, heir to the Brexit Party, and hosts a broadcast on right-wing television GB News.
Nigel Farage campaigning for the referendum (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
Farage criticized the way in which Conservative governments have defined the terms of the exit from the European Union and the subsequent management, commenting on some very negative data regarding the British economy. According to forecasts dell’The UK’s gross domestic product growth will be the second worst among the world’s major economies after Russia’s over the next two years from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
However, Farage said he was convinced that the decision to leave the Union was the right one:
I didn’t think for one minute that it would be better to stay in the European Union. But I am convinced that we have not had the economic benefits that we could have had. Now we are in control again, but we are imposing even more rules on our economy than when we were in Europe.