Farage on 10 years of Brexit: Boris never wanted Leave to win

0:04The Telegraph.

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1:09He's riding a wave of banter, smuggery, and self-congratulation. But will Andy Burnham's coronation come crashing down? Craven cabinet ministers are already sucking up to the man who claims to be the next messiah. Does he have a plan? and why was he once described as serially incompetent? And we speak to Nigel Farage to mark the 10th anniversary of Brexit. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tomini. And me, Tim Stanley.

1:46Tim, why am I dressed like this? And we're getting onto the weather in a moment. Because it's a beautiful day. But why am I in white and red? I don't know. What's happening tonight? I don't know. England are playing again. Oh, England are playing. England are playing Ghana. Do you think we're going to win this match? Oh, wow. OK. Yeah, that sounds plausible. I love asking you about the Bible. This is like you asking me about chapters of the Bible. My attention is on Wednesday when Scotland are playing because I might use it as an excuse to wear my kilt. Yes. It's bloody hot to wear a kilt, though.

2:19It's going to be 37 degrees on Wednesday. Au contraire. I find kilts in hot weather to be rather comfortable. Really? Is that because you're not wearing any pants? You little filth bag. How crude. Well, you have to not wear pants with a kilt, don't you? Am I crude? You know I'm crude. By the way, people said that our outfits yesterday in Downing Street were very summery. They called you the man from Del Monte. Yeah. I just look like a nice, clean salesman. I don't mind. That's exactly what I was going for. So why would I complain? I fished my coolest dress as I mean, cool as in. I don't think I'm that cool.

2:51I mean, cool as in not hot from the bottom of a... I discovered a load of summer dresses that I put away in winter, which I've now got out and wearing with great abandon. Can I just say that all of this stuff about let's close schools, let's close everything, oh, my God, we're all going to die in the heat is a bit over the top. Greenpeace now saying the government must stop winging it and implement a comprehensive extreme heat strategy rather than relying on basic advice like drink more water. What advice do you want the government to give? Try and stay cool, drink more water. These people want an entire strategy for coping with a couple of days of 30 plus degrees.

3:33What does this remind you of? Lockdown. Yes. And what did we have under lockdown? A combination of the state goes big brother, the state also shuts down and goes home. Yeah. Schools closed. It's funny, isn't it? It doesn't make any sense though, does it? No one says to the private sector, you've got to close down and go home and stay indoors and watch telly in front of a fan. But for some reason, public sector, it's always, oh, we can't function past midday. But look at this advice. Remote learning and go home to work if necessary. I'm sorry, but most people's homes are hotter than their offices because they're not air conditioned.

4:10That's true. Yes. Do you have air conditioning? No, I do not. I have two large tower fans. but also I live in a basement flat, which everyone should do. I worry at night about my dog and I actually wake up worrying, is he too hot? But some time ago, I gave him a bedroom in the house, which turns out to be the coolest part of the house. So I keep waking up having daddy fears that my dog is burning up. And I go into the room and I open the door and there's this cool breeze. Lovely. And then you climb into his bed. I can't believe he's got the best room in the house. Well, on the theme of things hotting up, see what I've done there.

4:49Clever. The Labour leadership might not be quite as straightforward as we thought. Now, yesterday we left Downing Street with the conclusion that it was going to be a coronation. Because suddenly, as we were recording, Wes Streeting said, actually, he's not going to stand. He's going to back Burnham. And then we thought, well, who's going to take on these guys? If we think this is a kind of dual ticket of Burnham on the soft left, streeting on the blue Labour right, presumably as his next chancellor, that's all a done deal and everything's going to be fine. And also Burnham was on his way to London by train, which gave the impression of Napoleon marching into Paris to tell the directory that it was closed or Cromwell shutting the parliament.

5:31But there was a strange juxtaposition between the media's intense coverage of a train journey. And you could tell from the images the public had no idea what was going on. No, I know. Also, there's a load of memes. Who is he? Is he a celebrity? Is he famous? There's a load of memes on X at the moment where people are cutting clips from Coronation Street. You know where people from Coronation Street announce that they're going to London and then someone says, to London? What are you doing that for? It was like, it was such an important moment for Andy Burnham that he managed to change out of his black T-shirt.

6:03I actually remember when Vera and Rita and the girls went to see Cats in London. That's how old I am. But it was preposterous. But I do wonder if he is riding a wave of smuggery and self-congratulation that will backfire. Because once he arrived in London, and we'll talk about his swearing in, he then went for a photograph with Labour MPs. And it was uncomfortable to watch. Yes. Because Burnham is being elevated because of crisis in the country, political, economic and social. We've just had riots. People have been going door to door, burning down the houses that have foreigners in them. The country's not in a good place right now.

6:49OK. So for him to turn up, as some people said, with kind of cool headmaster vibes, standing in front of hundreds of giddy MPs, all pushing their way to the front, hoping that he recognizes them, desperate for a job. It was a classic example of the Labour Party getting high on its own supply. Yes. Labour sees itself as the party of the people. And so it thinks if Labour's feeling good about life, Britain will be feeling good about life. and this man is riding in and because he makes us feel happy because he just won an election and we haven't done that for a very long time, the rest of the country must be loving this.

7:25Yeah, I know. It's ridiculous. And somebody said, posted the image and then said, describe this in one word and I thought hubris. Yes. And it's actually, there's a degree of continuity starmer about Burnham in many ways because we had that gaslighting speech from the Prime Minister pretending everything that he's done over the course of the last two years has been amazing and the country is somehow riding high, which begs the question, well, why have you fallen off your horse then? And second of all, what do we have in Burnham? We have somebody very similar to Starmer when he entered office. We discussed this somewhat yesterday.

7:58Doesn't seem to have a plan. OK, so he's liable to become prime minister and then get pushed around instantly by the civil service because he's coming in on nothing. He's coming in on thin air. I've asked repeatedly of ministers who come on my GB News show, what is Burnhamism? What are his top three ideological beliefs? And it all comes down to buses. It really does. It's all buses and trams. Literally no one can answer the questions. Yes. And the other thing is, is that actually when you look back on his history as a minister, and again, we touched on this yesterday, he's failed in two leadership bids so far.

8:33OK, he's succeeded in this one or he looks like he's going to succeed in this one. Let's see. And we'll get on to Al Qans and any potential challenges in a minute. But, you know, he's in the health department that presides over the mid-staff's catastrophe. He was described to me by somebody as, quote, serially incompetent. He doesn't have that many highlights from his time under Blair and Brown. And suddenly... He never talks about it. It's all Manchester. It's all Manchester. And we've talked about the fact that you're not really that challenged as a metropolitan mayor because all you're doing is your civic duty and there's no difficult decisions to be made.

9:08Let's then get onto the swearing in then. Because there is this sense around him that he is, quotes, the next messiah. And it was quite funny for him to be heckled with that upon entering the House of Commons. CHEERING

9:25Let me save you.

9:37I swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles, his heirs and successors, according to law. So help me, God. Hear! I'm not so sorry. The mood in the chamber was very odd because on one side you had the Tories taking the mick, like those comments suggest. On the other side you had probably a couple of hundred Labour MPs, noticeably not ministers, who were clearly delighted to see him. And as a spectator, the difference, the sudden change between Starmer and Burnham was striking. And his witty riposte to that, he's not the messiah, I'm just a naughty boy.

10:24But also when the Tories were taking the mick out of his new suit, he gave them almost a little twirl. Yes. So he can play the game better than Starmer even on day one. To be fair, it's not just a game, it's who he really is. He is a man who's very at home in his own skin, who's very relaxed and is happy to take risks. Politicians are trained never to show too much of yourself in case you make a mistake, like Robert Kenyon, someone like that. There are other people who don't have that training. And so their short and brilliant political career is just a litany of mistakes. But for Burnham, he seems to be able to walk that line between he can play the statesman, but he can also play the human being.

11:05And there was almost a sense of relief that, oh, we've got a human being back in charge. Yes. Although there was something cravenly self-interested about some of the ministers that attended the Burnham selfie opportunity, but were conspicuous by their absence at Keir Starmer's Sayonara. OK, I mean, it's absolutely extraordinary, this. And actually, Kemi Badenock was one of the first to point out the hypocrisy at play inside the cabinet. This is what she said to LBC. Wasn't it a disgrace that Rachel Reeves, who's 50 % of the reason why Labour has been terrible, wasn't there? Instead, she was taking selfies with Andy Burnham.

11:44This is what they're like. They won't do the right thing and they won't take responsibility and instead they pretend that they have achievements. I felt very sorry for Keir Starmer, to be honest. As a political journalist, Camilla, isn't power fascinating to watch? It's an akredisiac, apparently. It's never worked on me. No, quite. I mean, Gordon Brown. I know, I find these people actually repel me, not attract me. These psychopaths that go for power at all costs. Please, stop it. There is a scene in the James Bond movie, Spectre, where Blofeld gathers all the bad guys and two of them fight for leadership and one blinds the other.

12:19It's a horrible scene. And Blofeld says later on, isn't it funny? The moment he lost his eyesight, it's as if he was no longer there. He's physically alive, but no longer there. Power is like that. Keir Starmer is still our prime minister. He's still got the nuclear codes. Yes. But the moment, not just the moment he announced he was going to go in the future. But the moment the NEC allowed Burnham to run for Makerfield, his power not just evaporated, it almost disappeared overnight. Yes. And it passes immediately to whoever the crowd thinks is the next man. That's the nature of power. You're always thinking not about the here and now, but tomorrow.

13:04Yes. Who in this room do I need to speak to who tomorrow will be able to promote me and give me what I want? And it's so interesting sitting in Parliament, having watched Starmer resign, and then to see the power immediately pass to Andy Burnham, who had been an MP once he had sworn in, for all of two minutes. I know. And suddenly it's as if he already runs the country. But also doesn't that explain somewhat people's complete ennui with some of these figures? This idea that people can just chop and change and go into a different camp. Because what does it say about them? One minute, literally last week, you're on a broadcast round defending Starmer and saying he's got a right to fight another, I don't know, six months, ten years is the case of Peter Kyle.

13:51He was suggesting that in May. And then the very next minute, suddenly, right, he's a busted flush. Let's go on to the next one. What does it say about any of these people? And I accept the counter argument. We're a parliamentary system. you elect a Labour majority, and it's whoever can command the confidence of that majority who then becomes Prime Minister. And you can change horses midstream, and that's constitutionally totally correct, because they serve the king. We're not a direct democracy in that sense. On the other hand, if the person is not elected by the people, you have to ask, where does their mandate come from?

14:27But also, so I come back to why I felt your word hubris was correct for that photo. Labour MPs think because we like him, the whole country likes him, and that's his mandate. No, we have not elected this man. Do not get excited about someone who the public has not yet had a chance to pass a verdict on. One vote in one by-election does not count. Yes. He is not tested. He has not been given the public's approval. Also, it's typically sort of lefty socialist thinking to think to yourself, well, because Burnham wants to do well, because he's a do-gooder, so to speak, a bit like Starmer, he will do well.

15:09No, no, no, life isn't like that. Also, by the way, the Prime Minister can't have it both ways. Yesterday was basically the Prime Minister being kiboshed by streeting, not for the first time, because he gave that speech where he basically wanted to take back control of the timetable, say to the NEC, listen, we'll start all of this on July the 9th and then we'll take it through the summer, by which time I can try and secure some other legacy to dither, delay and disaster. Streeting said, well, no, I'm backing Burnham and therefore will there be a leadership race at all, which therefore begs the question, well, why are we waiting until July the 9th?

15:47If there is going to be a coronation, why don't we do it immediately? And by the way, why have you now, if you want to remain in power for that time, although he's been in office and not in power for many months, frankly, Why have you then delegated the G7 summit statement to David Lammy? He wasn't even there. You either want to remain as prime minister and therefore you have to be prime minister or you don't. Instead, Starmer's going off to farewell drinks at Downing Street. I think that's completely incongruous. The time between Margaret Thatcher losing the leadership election and the election of her replacement, John Major, was one week.

16:23Well, there you are. And Margaret Thatcher was an important prime minister at a time when Britain mattered. The idea that he can give himself three weeks within which to swan around the world and enjoy one last appearance at the global buffet and then possibly have a contest. But OK, so it is partly about narcissism. But yesterday I spent some time in Parliament talking to people. And when Keir Starmer said, I have listened to the parliamentary party and they've said they don't want me anymore. And I accept that with good grace. That's nonsense. Keir Starmer is furious. Yes. He wanted to fight on, but he was told by cabinet members, we will not support you, so you will lose.

17:06So he finally realized he had to go. But he would like to do anything which would undermine Andy Burnham because he is so damn angry right now. There is no grace in this whatsoever. So from that point of view, he's given it time to find someone else to run against Burnham. And I'm not saying that Keir Starmer is some kind of Blofeld-style genius puppet master here. I'm just saying from Burnham's point of view, what they really want is actually longer than that. Yes. Because they've got to get ready to take over because Burnham right now is not ready. I've got this image in my mind of Starmer sitting with Larry the cat.

17:45With a white cat. Stroking him with an evil look in his eye. But I agree, he's trying to pave the way for Alcance. But to come back to this point about how our parliamentary system is supposed to work, it makes sense if you swap a prime minister out with someone else who's in the cabinet. Yes. Because that person knows how things work. Andy Burnham has not been in Westminster for 11 years. Yeah. He's coming straight down from Manchester. He's only just been elected. He's not even had any time as an MP. Does he even know how the tube works? His people are starting to say, are we ready in three weeks' time?

18:18Of course they're not. To take over from Keir Starmer if there is a coronation. Newsflash. He isn't ready. They have a choice. They can then transfer their own staff into number 10 and just essentially use the mayoral operation and use it to run the country. Or you go into number 10 and you look around and say, I don't even know the way to the toilet. Yeah. I'm just going to take Keir's staff. Yeah. In which case, it's just a continuation of the old regime. That's right. And you're stuck with many of the same people. So the other thing we're debating right now is who will be Chancellor? Yeah, Streeting.

18:57We're coming around to where Streeting, because it feels like a deal has been done. And it was striking that just before the election of Burnham, Streeting had given a big speech about the economy, in which he talked about the importance of free markets. He was laying out his stool as, I'm a safe pair of hands to the bond markets. That speech was not for Labour members. Ed Miliband spooked the markets. Exactly. It may well be West Streeting, but if we're talking about rearranging ministries like this, do they have time? Are they ready? Is West Streeting ready to run the Treasury? He has been a health minister for two years.

19:28Why would you take out someone like Rachel Reeves? I know Telegraph's not keen on her, but again, she knows where the pens are kept. She can put her hands on a stapler. if Britain matters as politicians keep telling us it does if the state machinery is so difficult to manage as Keir Starmer has shown are we ready as a country in three weeks to just replace all of these people with Andy Burnham and his friends? Probably not. By the way people are making comparisons to Boris Johnson but it's not quite accurate because of course he served as Foreign Secretary in between being London Mayor and Prime Minister.

20:03He was in the Cabinet. OK, he resigned from Theresa May's cabinet. But, you know, he had done some of the legwork and had something resembling a team around him. On Al Karnes, the Telegraph's favourite candidate to replace Keir Star. So that's the scenario if there's a coronation. Sure. But if there is some kind of contest... Yeah, but we've now got to wait. Al Karnes doesn't need to make his mind up for another two and a half weeks because of this bizarre July the 9th date. Is he going to go for it? Now, I'm hearing that the Labour membership is getting increasingly shirty about the idea of not being given a say, because actually, if you put Al Kahn's into the ring, you've then got a soft left candidate versus a blue Labour candidate.

20:45I mean, whisper it, he's a Tory, guys, but whatever. Popular after he appeared on the Daily Tea last week. Great. Al Kahn's might want to do that in order to keep the Labour membership happy, to give them some kind of choice. It does all beg the question, by the way, though, Tim, why are we vesting so much power in such tiny caucuses of people to choose the next prime minister? You could say this about the Tory membership as well, by the way. We've moved from a system where it used to be in the power of parliamentarians. Yes, MPs elected their leader. The membership system may have worked in the 1970s when the membership of political parties was in its millions.

21:24I think five million for the Tories, more for Labour because of the inclusion of union members. Yes. We've now got about, what, 100 ,000-odd people in the Tory party membership, 250 ,000 in the Labour membership. Well, actually, you know, it's more recent than that. Labour has only elected its parliamentary leader using the mass membership in the trade unions since 1983. Right, OK. The Tories only did it for the first time in 1997 with William Hague. But do you agree that the constituencies were bigger then? because they might be more representative of the country. We were talking millions of people if you include the trade union bloc vote in 1983.

22:04We're giving like a few hundred thousand people or a hundred thousand people, say over our prime minister, over parliamentarians who represent the entire country. At least the parliamentarians, it's not perfect. They're not a perfect voting bloc, but they have been democratically elected. Yes, and we all know that when the Tories handed the membership the vote in the 90s, it was a disaster because they chose William Hague, Ian Duncan Smith. They should have chosen Kenneth Clarke, whose politics... Should they? No, I don't share his politics, but my goodness, he would have been far more popular versus Blair than either of those two.

22:38So yeah, I agree with you entirely. The idea that the membership should be able to choose the prime minister, it's not much of a step up from Makerfield choosing the prime minister. But even if Al Kahn's runs, even if the other name being mooted is Darren Jones, Starmerites, I can't believe there are Starmerites, but they are said to be coalescing behind Darren Jones, I can tell you now, Burnham will walk it. Yes, I know. In the same way that Boris Johnson walked it with Jeremy Hunt. Yes. It's a waste of time. You may just as well have the coronation rather than a long contest. OK. Names for Burnham's cabinet, Chancellor, as we've discussed, Wes Streeting, John Healy.

23:12Well, no, they're not going to give it to John Healy because that's going to require Burnham to spend money on defence, which he doesn't want to do because somebody again made this point this morning. You know, Mark said that religion was the opium of the people. The opium of the people these days is government spending. We must spend more. So, no, they're not going to do that. Homesec Shabana Mahmood, although there's talk that maybe Yvette Cooper now wants to go back to the Home Office, wouldn't do that, by the way. Mahmood is the only capable person in the Labour Cabinet right now. Angela Rayner obviously tipped for a top job, along with Louise Hagen, a new haircut because she's been the one propelling Burnham to power from the very beginning.

23:50Can we just quickly, before we get on to 10 years of Brexit and Nigel Farage, Steve Bray playing Ode to Joy. Lots of lefties have thrown their toys out of the pram about it. Yeah, they didn't mind it so much when he was drowning out Tory leaders. Only a few weeks ago, I was at a Brexit conference which had been arranged by a think tank with lots of keynote speakers, including Dan Hannon and Bill Cash and other Maastricht rebels. And Bray was outside pumping music into the venue so that you could barely hear yourself think. I had to chair a panel. No one complained. No one has ever explained why the police cannot move that on as a public nuisance.

24:27Because it's a peaceful protest, although it's a loud one. It makes no difference. If you were just some kid with a ghetto blaster, they would move you on and say you're crazy. I do not understand the difference between the two. I saw Bray outside Downing Street. I said, why did you play that particular song and he insisted it was because Keir Starmer had listed it as one of his favourite pieces of music. He has said elsewhere that he did it to drown out someone who was heckling. So he did it almost as a favour to the Prime Minister. But Bray gets to say who's drowned out and who isn't. Yes. I think that's wrong.

24:53Right. And the other thing I was going to come out with before we get on to our Farage interview, on the subject of the reform leader, Scott, very chippy this morning on the broadcast round when being questioned about the Christopher a Harbourn£5 million donation. Yes. A little bit of a row with Sally Nugent on BBC Breakfast. Then had a little bit of a row with Nick Ferrari on LBC. I mean, the questions are coming in from the public. What have you actually done with this money? We get that you say it's a gift to pay for your security, that you accepted it before you're an MP, and that you didn't necessarily know you were going to stand in Clacton at the time.

25:30But then when he's asked, well, how much of the money have you spent on bodyguards and things? because he keeps on saying, look, I'm the most threatened politician in Britain. It's for security. He then says, it's none of your business what I'm spending the money on. Yes, it's the subject of a parliamentary inquiry by the Standards Commissioner and we should let that take its course. It's a bit politically damaging for him, this whole, just the aura of chippiness about this because I thought that he was the man of the people and he established that reputation because it was sort of like he traded in gilts and things, didn't he, in the city and probably earned quite a lot of money.

26:06And the whole thing was I've given up all that. Yes. And I don't really have a pot to pee in because I've gone into politics because I'm morally obliged to fight for Brexit. And I've actually financially disadvantaged myself. And that's why you and I can have a pint in the pub. It was the Boris Johnson did a similar thing. You know, he's driving around in a clapped out car with a load of like mouldy brie on the back seat. He's an old Etonian, but he doesn't have any money. He's doing all this for the love of the country. You do squander all that if you've taken five million quid from a crypto billionaire, maybe.

26:39Boris always looked like he had money, but he'd probably lost it. Yes. The Lib Dems have a poster, which is of Nigel Farage laughing like a drain. Ten years on, do you feel better off? And it quotes Nigel saying, Farage, I was given five million pounds as a reward for Brexit. Now, this taps into two things. One is there is a Remainer conspiracy theory that Brexit was bought and paid for. And it comes out of the idea that it's so obviously a stupid thing to do that the public could only have fallen for it if there was dirty money involved, if politicians were paid to lie about it. So there's a conspiracy theory angle to this.

27:24But there's also this question, and I think reform will eventually have to confront it, of can you do a rich man's populism? The issue isn't what was the five million pounds spent on. It's the figure itself. When I get a gift, it's a pair of socks. To most people, five million pounds is a silly sum of money. It's unimaginable. It's a lottery win. Twelve million's gone to the party in addition. Right. So the personal gift to Farage. Yes. But we're talking about 17 million altogether, right? Who has that kind of money to give away? Why would they give it to a political party? I wouldn't give a fiver to a political party.

28:04It's an extraordinary thing to do. But if reform's whole message is we are of the people, how much money do you have to have in your bank account for that to start to sound silly? And this has always been a problem with right-wing populism, is the people running it themselves are not terribly working class. And you've just got to be, either got to own that and be honest about it and flash the cash. And a lot of people, look, Donald Trump, people don't care how much money he's got or pretends to have. But there are going to be some people in your grassroots who say, you're now so rich, I'm not sure you can understand where I'm coming from.

28:43And just in case history washes over it, we have had the news today that Peter Murrell has been sentenced to five years for embezzling SMP cash. We did the generation game on it. What's happening to the Le Creuset pots and pans and the library ladder and the two, I think, Dyson air wraps or whatever for a bald man? What's happening to that? And the second low moment was the swearing in of Lara Bird, the new SMP MP for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, who took the oath with her fingers crossed. Opened by saying, my chief loyalty will always be to the sovereignty of the true sovereign Scottish people.

29:29It's exactly the kind of thing people say about Brexit, by the way, and she would have laughed at. But she came across like a snooty teen forced to recite a Bible passage at a wedding and saying, I don't want to do this, and I'm going to do it with my fingers behind my back. I know, it's absolutely pathetic. I said it was an example of the political classlessness of the average politician. But I would add, if you are so opposed to the existence of the United Kingdom, don't run for the Westminster Parliament. Yeah. Don't show up and behave like that. Run for Holyrood, right? Exactly right. Coming up next, Nigel Farage and his remarkable and extraordinary claim about Boris Johnson's Brexit vote.

30:20Camilla, 10 years on from the Brexit referendum, what's your memory of that day? Complete and utter shock to discover that Leave had won. Delight, joy. You did vote for Brexit, didn't you? Of course I did. What are you asking me that for? Well, I think that's unusual among journalists, so I do just double-check. I spent the whole of the referendum campaign basically having a go at Ed Davey and the Liberal Democrats for being anything other than liberal or democratic. It was one of the happiest days of my life. I also remember the meltdown by Lily Allen and others who absolutely lost it. I wasn't just happy because the other side lost.

30:54I was genuinely thrilled to feel that Britain had got its sovereignty and its democracy back. Absolutely so. And I stayed up all the night watching it at home at the time I was living with my mother and she got up to use the toilet at about 5am and shouted downstairs, What's happened? And I shouted back up, Brexit's won! And she said, no! I know. And then I was dispatched very early in the morning to go to Vote Leave HQ, where we were confronted with Boris Johnson and Michael Gove like two rabbits in headlights. Yes. Clearly hadn't anticipated the knock-on effect of it literally forcing their former bestie, David Cameron.

31:35More for Gove, not for Johnson. They were never bedfellows, really. Whereas, of course, Nigel Farage was over the moon. And although he did not run Vote Leave, he ran a rival campaign, the referendum would never have been won without his years of tireless work and advocacy. And in 2019, that's when it actually happened, right? There were all parties that night. And I met him and I said to his face, and I mean it, I believe you saved my country. Wow. So we're going to talk to him now. And I do say with a genuine sense of awe and respect, because whatever else has gone on in his political career, whatever mistakes he's made, whatever happens with reform, I do think this is one of the most significant figures in the history of my country.

32:19Nigel Farage, a leader of Reform UK, we're here to speak to you about the 10th anniversary of Brexit. But there is another very, very important poll that we must very quickly discuss. It's quite serious, this. I'm not sure if you're aware of it. But Richard Tice, your deputy, has overtaken you as sexiest politician 2026. How are you coming to terms with that? Well, I think it's the ravages of leadership. I think that's what it is. I think, you know, Richard's deputy are not living under quite such intense hours and travel. But look, I congratulate him on being number one. Yeah, I mean, but hey, you know what?

33:00We're still one, too. It's not bad, is it? Not bad at all. And there's always rear of the year to look forward to. So you never know. Well, I think I won that when I was in the Australian jungle. Oh, really? Oh, yes, because we did see you naked in the Australian jungle. We do remember that now. That image is embedded into our brains. On to Brexit. Nigel, Britain voted to leave on June the 23rd, 2016 by roughly 52 to 48 percent. On the night itself, there was a moment when it looked like you thought you might have lost. and then you realised you'd won. What were you thinking between those two moments?

33:35What was going through your head? So that morning, after 23 years, after I decided I would give up my normal life, and my normal life was running my own company in the city, going to the pub, playing golf at weekends, young family, big income, and I decided to give it all up to launch a sort of one-man mission. to get us out of the European Union. And 23 years later, it was polling day. And I went to vote. And then I went to lunch with Aaron Banks. And I realized there was nothing more I could do. And as the afternoon and evening went on, I sunk into a state of deep depression. No, honestly, I was miserable as sin.

34:25I was terrible company. And then the polls closed. and I stupidly, really stupidly said to somebody who rang me up, a journalist from Sky News, well, I don't know, maybe the other side have got it. I don't know. I just don't know. That, of course, was taken as the biggest concession of all time, which led to all sorts of conspiracy theories that I'd shorted Sterling at 10 o 'clock before making this statement. And, yeah, no, I was just feeling miserable. But why did you think that it had been lost? What gave you that impression? We remember Project Fear very well, but it was always deemed to be quite a close-run thing.

35:05Well, there was a populist poll that was released that morning at about 11 o 'clock, which showed Remain 10 points in the lead. Now, the man, I won't name him, but the man who produced that poll for his efforts is now in the House of Lords, and it was just a really awful establishment trick to try and get it on the airwaves, to try to make people think it wasn't worth bothering to vote. Whether that influenced me or not, I'm not sure. It happened. I just think I was preparing myself for the worst. I was mentally, and funny enough, six months later, when Trump won in America, and I went to see him a couple of days afterwards, and he said to me, you know, Nigel, he said, when the polls closed, I knew I'd lost.

35:48I knew I'd lost. I convinced myself I'd lost. I said, well, it's amazing because I went through the same thing. So it's my own silly fault. I shouldn't have said anything at 10 o 'clock at all. But once we said, hey, you know what, we all make mistakes. But once Sunderland came in, the game looked very different. When Sunderland broke, it not just meant Brexit was going to win, but it also signalled a change in the politics of the country, didn't it? Because Sunderland was Labour territory. We always thought of Euroscepticism as being a Tory shires thing. But no, it was working class Sunderland that delivered that first victory.

36:22Well, the posh boys at Vote Leave, you know, they thought that it was all about Conservative voters that needed to vote Leave. But really, it was all about who ran the Conservative Party next. And it was obvious we had to get Labour voters voting Brexit to win. And roughly four million regular Labour voters voted Brexit. I'd said for many years before, for many years before, I'd said that I wanted to cause an earthquake in British politics. And by getting Cameron to promise the referendum and it happened, the earthquake happened and it started with Sunderland. The interesting thing is 10 years on, we're still feeling the aftershocks of Brexit running through the British political system.

37:06It's never going to be the same again. You also said we have changed the policy. I'm paraphrasing, but we have changed the policy. but we haven't changed the people implementing it. I think that nicely sums up what happened next. Yes, I remember the next morning. I mean, I stayed up all night, obviously, and we all went off for a celebratory breakfast at the Ritz. And I remember at the Ritz, Dan, my press guy, Dan said to me, but the problem is the same people are still in charge. He was absolutely right. And from that moment, you know, Theresa May becomes the prime minister. It's viewed as a damage limitation exercise as opposed to an opportunity.

37:50And then we enter, you know, two and a half, three years of, I think, just the most disgraceful scenes in a country that still calls itself a democracy with, you know, the establishment, the speaker of the House of Commons doing everything they could to nullify and overturn the vote. to demonise those who'd voted Brexit as if we were all sort of knuckle-draggers. It really was a shocking period of time. How problematic was it that the result was so close? 51.9 % to 48.1%. Now, in my mind, not least as a lever, I was arguing, as you were and others, a win is a win. But because of that close margin, it seemed to give people green light to try and reverse the thing.

38:37I think they'd have tried to reverse it. whatever the result was. Really? I know, honestly, I do. And I, yeah, I mean, look, you know, a week before the referendum on June the 14th, we had the Battle of the Thames with Bob Geldof shouting abuse and Essex fishermen fire hosing him and all the rest of it. And that next morning, I thought, wow, this whole Leave campaign has got momentum. You can feel it. We're on the move. And then, of course, the appalling murder. of Joe Cox. I think that murder just killed the momentum that the Leave campaign had. It just paused its stone dead. And I think without that, it probably would have been a bit wider.

39:21But you know what? 52-48 is still a pretty big margin. What's your reading on how the Tories then bungled implementation? Michael Gove versus Boris Johnson, all that sort of thing. Why weren't they ready? This is one of the things that people argue against Brexit now, of course, is you guys were arguing for getting out, but you hadn't settled among yourselves how you were going to do it. Well, I was very clear as to how we do it. We go to Brussels and say, we're not signing up to any treaty. We're not accepting any timelines. We're prepared to leave with no deal and then walk out the room and wait for them to run down the street after you.

39:58And that's how you negotiate. Look, the whole thing was a complete disaster. Truth is, I don't believe Boris Johnson ever thought Lee could win. I'm not even sure he really wanted to win. I think it was a lot of positioning about who led the party going on. Gove is different. I think Gove intellectually did believe in Brexit. I think he really thought it through. I think he was absolutely on side. But I don't think Boris Johnson ever sincerely believed in it. And look, By the time he became prime minister, he did at least take us out. But the basic, I mean, look, there are good things that have happened.

40:40I mean, you can see the vaccine rollout, free, without the European Medicines Agency to make our own decisions. You can look at Ukraine, where we took a big foreign policy lead, whereas EU members, we spoke about Russia with one voice. There are areas where you can see, and even in trade, I mean, our trade has increased faster than the other EU states. But the two big things that people expected, one, was significant reduction of immigration numbers. And two, you know, overwhelmingly, the self-employed and small business owners voted Brexit. Overwhelmingly. Because they were having EU rules applied to them, despite the fact they weren't trading in Europe and were never going to trade in Europe.

41:23And they expected life to get a bit easier. And what's happened 10 years on under the Tories and now being worsened by Labour? Well, the Boris wave is unforgivable. I mean, 3.8 million people, only 20 % of whom are even on work permits. And then, of course, in terms of regulation, I actually think that the British regulatory authorities have now made life for small business and sole traders and self-employed even harder than it would have been if we'd stayed in the European Union. So there is great dissatisfaction with the lack of delivery. There really, really is. We're not going to reach out.

42:04That isn't going to happen. But certainly there are many people out there who feel very disappointed that the government did not deliver. On Johnson, just because I'm intrigued always by your relationship with his then right-hand man, Dominic Cummings, the former prime minister would argue, well, if I didn't want to get Brexit done, I wouldn't have brought Cummings in, who had helped to orchestrate, along with you and many others, vote leave. I mean, Cummings believes in leave, right? Cummings believes in leave, yes. But I don't think Boris ever really did. And I don't think, look, you know, if you want to win a referendum, you want to win a referendum, you have to cast the net wide.

42:43Yeah. But vote leave never did that. It was just it was just a couple of ex-Tory cabinet ministers. You know, what I tried to do with Aaron Banks was to reach out across the spectrum, including even George Galloway on the left. And the fact that Bradford voted leave, I think George might have had something to do with. We worked with Kate Hoey. You know, we were casting Manette as far wide as we could. Vote Leave never even attempted to do that. And I just never understood it. Thinking about the line between the Brexit vote and where we are today with reform, could one argue that Brexit blew up the Tory party but also helped it for a while?

43:23I mean, that's why it won that majority in 2019. But what it's done is expose what it's really about. Because, yes, it wanted to regain control of borders, but in order to open them up. It wanted to regain control of regulation, et cetera, but then it imposed even more. So is this the legacy of Brexit? Is it has exposed what the Conservative Party is really about? Oh, absolutely. And I'd remind everybody that the only reason Boris became prime minister was because I came back into politics, formed the Brexit Party, and Mrs May got the lowest vote share for 200 years. She resigned as prime minister before the final votes had even been counted.

44:03And without that, Boris would never have been prime minister. There would have been a second referendum. Goodness knows what would have happened in British politics. So I feel actually we did a heck of a lot by getting rid of Mrs May in that spring of 2019. And the sooner she resigned, it was obvious that Boris would become the prime minister. And even when it came to the election, you know, I kind of stood aside in 320 seats. So, you know, my relationship with Boris, you ask about Camilla. Well, you know, I think I did a fair bit to help him. I'm certain I did a fair bit to help him. And I feel pretty let down.

44:44How worried are you about the rhetoric around Labour, Andy Burnham, potentially becoming the next prime minister and talking about reversing the referendum again? I mean, we had this claim that there would be no red lines crossed in the change manifesto with Keir Starmer on the front. but there are all sorts of indications that actually they are slowly trying to realign us with Brussels. Yeah, and it's easy to do because we didn't disalign. Yes. I mean, Kemi Badnock had the opportunity to get rid of thousands of EU rules. She didn't do it. Just one little example. Look, if Burnham was to win this by-election and become the Labour leader and state his intent that he wants to take us back towards European Union membership, it would do him a lot of good in London, but they would lose every single seat in the Midlands, the North and South Wales.

45:40And that's the point I'm making, that 10 years on, the splits within Labour over this are still enormous. I would argue the splits within the Parliamentary Conservative Party are still pretty strong. I mean, I would say half of Tory MPs could easily be Lib Dems, and I really mean that. And that's why we're seeing this fracturing and change of British politics. We haven't – the British political system still has not recovered from that result that night. Nigel, there's a paradox now that some polls suggest that people wouldn't mind going back into the EU. Yet some polls also suggest that people don't want to go back into the EU.

46:20because I think what this speaks to is they're sick of the subject. Brexit happened. They want to move on. They don't care really if we're in or out, but they just don't want to fuss about it anymore. Have we just, as a country, grown up and moved on? I think we have. And I think that any serious attempt to take us back into the European Union would be rejected wholesale. We have a new status quo. That isn't going to change. What people really want is not to talk about the European Union, What they really want is to talk about the issues affecting their daily lives. And they want to feel that they've got a government in number 10 that makes them promises in election time and actually carries them out.

47:03And, you know, I would say that distrust in politics and politicians is higher today than it's ever been in my life. Nigel Farage, thank you very much indeed for joining us on The Daily Tea. Thank you.

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