Nigel Farage clashed with Victoria Derbyshire on Newsnight BBC
Nigel Farage admitted “Brexit has failed” during a fiery clash on the BBC’s Newsnight.
The former UKIP leader made the surprise comment as he was presented with the mounting evidence that quitting the European Union has damaged the British economy.
He said the Conservatives had failed to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the 2016 referendum result.
Newsnight presenter Victoria Derbyshire said: “A poll from last month showed that 53% of people say it was wrong to Brexit - around one in five Leave voters regret it.
″The OBR [Office for Budget Responsibility] forecast a 4% hit to the economy over the medium-to-long-term - that’s £40bn in tax revenues.
“The UK economy is the only G7 economy back to its pre-pandemic size. Business investment has lagged behind comparable economies.
“Economically, the UK would have been better off staying in, wouldn’t it?”
Farage said he “doesn’t think that for a minute”, but insisted the Tories had been worse than the European Commission at running the economy.
He said: “What I do think is that we haven’t actually benefited economically from Brexit.
″What Brexit’s proved, I’m afraid is that our politicians are about as useless as the commissioners in Brussels were.
“We’ve mismanaged this totally, and if you look at simple things such as takeovers, such as corporation tax, we are driving business away from our country.
″Arguably, now we’re back in control, we’re regulating our own businesses even more than they were as EU members. Brexit has failed.”
‘Brexit has failed’ GB News presenter Nigel Farage admits after he is read a list of negative facts about the UK economy https://t.co/P0zxS1DNGF pic.twitter.com/mUrnHee5mb — BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) May 15, 2023
Asked if that meant he could make yet another political comeback, Farage said it was “not top of my bucket list”, but refused to rule it out.
He said: “We’ve not delivered on borders, we’ve not delivered on Brexit - the Tories has left us down very, very badly.”
Farage previously said he would leave the country if Brexit turned out to be a “disaster”.
-wnr- on May 16th, 2023 at 13:11 UTC »
He's still pro Brexit and is just throwing the Tories under the bus.
fatuous_sobriquet on May 16th, 2023 at 12:37 UTC »
Yes but he said it failed because they didn’t Brexit hard enough.
It’s not like he’s come to his senses or anything.
spartiecat on May 16th, 2023 at 12:33 UTC »
The Brexit he campaigned on was an impossibility cushy, sweetheart deal Brexit where Britain would enjoy all the benefits of membership with none of the responsibilities. Anything less is the fault of everyone but his cadre of grifters and scoundrels.