Nigel Farage: “We will never rejoin the EU: Burnham has made a very big political mistake and he’ll have to deal with Meloni…”

DONCASTER — Nigel Farage is in good spirits after smoking a cigarette. The leader of Reform UK, neck and neck with Labour at the top of the polls, arrives in an electric-blue suit at Doncaster Racecourse, in a city that voted overwhelmingly — 69% —to leave the European Union in 2016. We are in Yorkshire, along the fabled Red Wall, home to white working-class voters and many former Labour supporters whom the king of the British right has won over in droves over the years. After his decades-long crusade against Brussels and Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s latest pro-European shift, marked by his bombshell remarks the other day (“the United Kingdom rejoining the EU is on the table”), the 62-year-old Farage is more determined than ever. Speaking to La Repubblica and a few British newspapers, his message is clear: if London really wants to rejoin the EU, supporters of European integration will once again have to get past his barricades. That is why Farage has chosen Doncaster to launch his “100 Days to Save Britain” campaign. Burnham has also raised the possibility of a second referendum on Brexit, and the latest polls suggest that 60% of Britons would vote to rejoin the EU. Isn’t Nigel Farage worried about losing the battle? “Oh, I think a Brexit referendum will unite the country wonderfully”, Farage defiantly answers, “I can't see anybody falling out at all. Families will all be at one with each other. Bizarre! How can you unite the country and then reopen this? "And the second point I'd make is this: is Andy Burnham a pro-devolution prime minister? You would think, listening to him, that devolution solved all problems: pass power down, and life will be better and people will be richer. To even consider rejoining the single market, the customs union, let alone the European Union itself is the opposite of devolution — a massive transfer of huge powers up to an authority, whereby there's nothing Parliament could do to change any of it. So, I find the whole thing totally contradictory”. But still, 60% of Britons would vote to rejoin the EU. “Of course they do”, Farage replies, “until you tell them it'll cost £25 billion a year. Until you tell them it'll mean joining Schengen. Until you tell them it'll mean actually having to recommit to joining the euro. Remember that the Leavers haven't made their arguments since 2016. The ‘Remoaners’ have made their arguments every single week. I mean, do you know what? I actually think that Burnham has made a very big political mistake here. I really do”. Still, is Nigel Farage already in talks to create a new campaign to stay out of the EU, and are donors offering him any money to support that campaign? “It’s premature. I mean, it’s just 48 hours... The independence arguments have not been made for 10 years. We thought this is a given, but you know, I will from this moment on start talking about this again. I've barely talked about it for 10 years…”. And what would Nigel Farage do if the UK actually rejoined the EU instead? “I'm not going to contemplate it”, is Farage’s stark response. “It's just not going to happen. Is Burnham going to sit down with the AfD, and Marine Le Pen, and even Giorgia Meloni — all people that, throughout his political career, he’s described as being the most appalling people on earth? "This is not the same European Union we left. It’s a very different place, and all of this is predicated on Burnham winning the next general election. I personally believe that, while it may benefit him in places like Islington and elsewhere in London, in places like Doncaster it’s going to go down like a disaster. And he's really put me back. I mean, he's actually put me back into the debate about the European Union. I've been quiet for 10 years. Now you’ll see what happens”. Farage alleged that Burnham is trying to build some sort of coalition ahead of the next election, probably with the Lib-Dems. Why? “It's almost like he's sort of building a referendum campaign team before we even get going. He might calculate that it'll help them dig more deeply into the Green vote and the big cities. But here in Doncaster and across the ‘red wall’ in the north and Midlands, I think Burnham has given me the biggest boost in my career. I really genuinely believe so”. The translation of this article was reviewed by a Language Service Provider