Beth Rigby Interviews...Nigel Farage

The new record net migration figures have sparked anger among some Conservatives over the failure to deliver on a key manifesto promise from the 2019 election. There is also frustration from those outside the party campaigning for Britain to leave the EU, including Nigel Farage, former Brexit party Ukip leader and now GB news presenter, has admitted Brexit failed, so where did it all go wrong? Did he and other politicians promise too much about benefits? Nigel Farage. Thank you very much for coming on the show today. You are now the most famous Brexiteer perhaps competing with Boris Johnson and you recently clearly admitted that Brexit had failed.

Do you want to apologize to voters for telling them we should leave the EU if it was a failure? Well, let's finish the sentence. Brexit has failed. under the Conservatives, yes, I mean look in constitutional terms, Brexit is a success, we have left the European Union, we have reversed the status quo and the reason we won the referendum, the reason turnout was 10 times greater than all analysts thought. What emerged was the idea that the population explosion in Britain caused by immigration was diminishing people's quality of life and, frankly, that is entirely because this government set the level at which people can come to get work permits, basically at the level of minimum wage regulation in immigration matters.

Do you take any responsibility for some of the failures of Brexit or some of the promises that were made in the campaign and not kept? No responsibility absolutely no no absolutely none I was very, very clear, very, very clear, it was about reducing numbers, it was about moving to an Australian style points system where you set the barriers and the levels to get a migration genuinely qualified and voluntarily Boris Johnson intentionally reduced those pay levels and we have also seen this explosion of foreign students coming to Britain who are allowed to bring dependents, but the thing is that when people think about Brexit, they think about you and on Boris Johnson because you also made a lot of promises in that campaign, actually no, no, I was the one who made the fewest promises, you said in June 2016 that Um, you could get migration to less than 50,000.

Of course, but I wasn't in charge. Look, if we had been a European country with proportional representation, I would have been in a position of authority to work with the government to try to achieve this. That's right, the irony is, here's the irony, the day after the referendum, the very few people he had fought against for 25 years were still in power, so what you have, and even in 2019, you have a government that was given an 80 seat majority, but here's the key, they never really believed in that, well look, you also made promises to the British people about border control, laws, trade deals, that trade deal with the The US is nowhere to be seen, none of that happened, no.

I wonder why that is, I wonder why that is, but does this actually make my question? Does this make the public more cynical about politicians like you who promise these things that they don't do? I don't reflect on them. I can promise you that if you look at the surveys conducted this week by yougov. I have them here. Disappointed Brexiteers. I am one of them. You know I'm at number 37 on Brexit. Voters are disappointed with that 37 75. percent lay it firmly and squarely at the door of this government, let me put it another way, so do you think the public might think twice before believing what you say next time ?

No, no, but they might think twice about what the Conservatives say next time, and I think you know, I think a lot of this is due to a breach of trust between what has been promised to voters and the election and what is being done and what their short-term solution would be, if they closed the borders and there was a shortage of workers in the UK to reduce net migration, if that meant there was a realistic chance of people finding somewhere to live, a school for their children to go to, for local people to have access to the NHS, then yes, of course.

Would you do it? You would close the borders. I didn't say right. Would you use the number of workers even if it meant shortages? Okay, you can't keep looking before 2004, when this really started. Cabbages were not rotting in the fields of Lincolnshire elders. People were not left alone in nursing homes, we managed to do all this and now we have become addicted to cheap, unskilled imported foreign labor. We have to reverse that process. Well, let's talk about the execution because it seems to me that a lot of the people see you as the biggest cheerleader for Brexit it hasn't worked out the way it was perhaps promised to the British people it hasn't worked out the way I spent almost 30 years captivating but you won't take responsibility for that but I wasn't getting the power No they gave me the power so it's not in me golf right I wasn't in a position so let's talk about the execution because Let's try to get to the truth of this.

I think it's fascinating to know how it could have gone better, because you think, don't you, that there was another way that Brexit could have worked for Britain and it seems to me that their model would have done that. It has been a decisive political decision for the country to leave the EU Cut taxes Reduce regulation Build a Singapore on the Thames That's what you wanted I never said I know, I never quoted Singapore on tennis, but does anyone believe? I think so much about what we do as a government and what the European Union also does is satisfy the demands and needs of the pressure groups of the giant companies.

There is a sector of our economy that has been left out of this debate: completely autonomous, small merchants. those companies that were the ones that voted for Brexit, were the ones that wanted relief, a lifting of the burdens and, in fact, it is from those millions of people that you get genuine economic growth, and at this moment it seems that we are in the while of all the worlds because We may not have taken advantage of the opportunities of Brexit that you visited, but that did involve a massive divergence, a deregulation, a tax cut, an attempt to make the UK economically competitive.

No, we didn't need to cut taxes. Remember actually one of the few things George Osborne achieved. The truth is that we lowered corporate tax to a reasonable and competitive level. Now we have gone, now we have converged with France with our corporate tax rates and you know, one of the worst things of everything that has happened and this is not talked about. so you wanted to reduce corporate taxes. I want to leave it where it was. We had a competitive corporate tax rate. Well, we don't do it with Ireland. We wouldn't all be Ireland even more competitive and good for them.

Okay, but short term. Short-term needs were not cutting taxes after Brexit, short-term needs were the number one decisive political action that triggered Article 50. The day after the referendum, if the trade deal with the United States had been made it would have been concluded, but because the conservative party is, of course. there were some who campaigned for brexit but the party itself hated the outcome of brexit, we have had years of dithering and even when they finally seemed to get the message they didn't get it, they never as a party believed in this. but this is what the PO seems to me that his vision of a Brexit at the pace of Britain was almost the vision that Liz Truss had completely uh to boost the economy by deregulating reducing taxes trying to compete with EU trade helping the little people that was my agenda to help the little people that I always fought for and always stood up for and it hasn't happened.

I guess what I'm asking you what I'm trying to get at is whether the project was sold to the British people in a way that was not going to come to fruition and the actual project was what I'm talking about, the only way would have worked well, I think you don't really talk to the British about how it was going To work, I talked to the British people about achieving independence and there were two areas, I repeat this, there were two areas that I thought were easy to achieve: the first was reduce this massive increase in population in our country and the second was to eliminate some of the burdens on the backs of ordinary men and women who go out to try to make a living, they were the two two and you know, they were realistic expectations of those who voted for Brexit and it hasn't happened and I mean, frankly, frankly, I think And then I look at the history of the 2019 Manifesto, the way it was presented to people and, frankly, it was a big lie, no it's partly the truth of net migration that for economic growth you need a level of net migration, oh listen, I've been hearing this for a quarter of a century, okay, you know, you know, if the increase in the British population in 8 million people has added, you know, a few pips here and there, a few decimal points here and there to the GDP, then it flourishes that there is something that is much more important than the size of our GDP, there is something called community, there is something called quality of life in this country and these are things that virtually no one in Westminster talks about, but they are felt very deeply outside the M25, but you made it sound so simple in that referendum campaign and it wasn't simple, it was never going to being simple, as if it were a simple thing to do what you do well, it was never going to be simple in the morning. on June 24, 2016 you activate article 50 you start the process no one said it was going to be easy but we made it very very difficult because we had a government full of remnants who did not believe in it and I want to say To be honest, there is no one more disappointed than me for what this government has done.

I'm furious. I would have loved to be in a position of responsibility, but I wasn't, but you also promise things in that referendum that you never could. deliver I think you will find that Boris Johnson and others were the ones who made you, you said you could get it. I was looking to ask since June before the June 2016 vote, you said we can reduce net migration to 50,000. Yes, of course, now if you want it to be a good name, Boris Johnson, of course, we will look at it and say this . I believe in this guy, yes, I believe in this guy, yes, I voted for him because of this guy, we could have done it and this guy let me down.

The guy didn't come with the trees. I don't. If they put me in charge I would have got to 30,000 a year, no doubt, but they didn't, so the problem we have now is I, you know, I said Brexit, I said 10 years ago that I wanted to cause an earthquake in politics. British, well, we had the earthquake, we are still suffering from the aftershocks and we all live with the fractures, well, we are suffering from the aftershocks. because yes, because Parliament and the government have ignored the will of the people, they have ignored what was said in that Brexit referendum and now a more important question arises about how we are going to change politics in this country. and I think, eh, I promise things to the British people that I, as a politician, didn't know if I could deliver.

I feel a certain responsibility, no, because they are going wrong, no, because they were never your fault, they all were, no, they were all deliverable. The point is, it wasn't hard to do, that's the point, maybe they weren't as deliverable as you intended, like they were, for example, with net migration and it's amazing. Just think that if I had been in charge, I would have allowed the foreigner. students to bring in dependents do you think if I were in charge we would have established a level at which minimum wage levels break down migration? The figures are not just foreign students, they are also worker visas for the shortage in the economy, it is the Ukrainian Refuge level, but There are a number of defenders of those net migration figures, some of whom must choose yes at the level of the minimum wage, that was not the promise, that was not the agreement, so we are where we are and when it comes to you and the Reform.

The party that you are president of, yes, they did terrible in the local elections, so what does that tell you about their ability to repeal now that the public has about four or five percent of the seats, so Is it very difficult to judge if they did well or badly? Be honest, and you know that building a national party political structure is not an easy thing to do, but I think the gap between Westminster and where the people are is even greater than it was 10 years ago. I think there will be another insurgency in British politics. if it will be like this if it will be a reform if it will be me if we will have a new Nick Griffin I trust you, you made all these promises and no, I don't think so, don't you think you could be? a blush broken by that, as I told you, if we take Hugo's survey this week of the 37 who are disappointed by Brexit, 75 per cent of them quite unequally at the Conservative party's doorstep, they certainly are not to me blaming and what if it's not me and it's not herreform then maybe we will have a Nick Griffin type figure maybe we will bring the far right genuinely into British politics something is going to change this gap is too big do you really think you could go back now and run a campaign like the guy who is going to achieve a real brexit given what was passed oh i think if i stood again it would be a much more revolutionary agenda than just brexit it would be a fundamental change to the voting system i would do something people might be watching these people i hear you and what you promised in 2016 about how the country would change after Brexit and what has happened and I don't think I trust anything like that.

I think not, I think they will share my disappointment, okay, last question, will I see you again in frontline politics? Then in the next five years, I don't know, I really don't know, I haven't ruled it out, I haven't ruled it out, if I could see it doing it. There was a really clear and achievable goal that I might as well not have figured out yet. If we had done that, if we had an electoral system that was representative in some way, then it would be a lot easier if you brought Brexit to Britain. and where you were the main cheerleader, now brexit is in crisis and your message to the british public is that it was not my fault at all that a completely dishonest establishment globalist has let us down badly and now it remains noticeable that some voters might look and I think you were dishonest when you promised things you could never keep.

Know? Maybe I did things right. Maybe I was wrong during my years in politics. I would like to think with my hand on my heart. I was never dishonest. Okay, Nigel Farage, thank you. you're too much