Tag: Nigel Farage

Below is the text of the speech made by Nigel Farage, the Leader of UKIP, to the European Parliament on 28 June 2016.

Funny, isn’t it? When I came here 17 years ago and I said that I wanted to lead a campaign to get Britain to leave the EU, you all laughed at me. Well I have to say, you’re not laughing now, are you? And the reason you’re so upset, the reason you’re so angry has been perfectly clear form all the angry exchanges this morning – you as a political project are in denial. You’re in denial that your currency is failing, just look at the Mediterranean, as a policy to impose poverty on Greece and the rest of the Mediterranean you’ve done very well and you’re in denial over Mrs Merkel’s call last year for as many people as possible to cross the Mediterranean into the EU has led to massive divisions between countries and within countries.

But the biggest problem you’ve got and the main reason the UK voted the way that it did is you have, by stealth, by deception, without ever telling the truth to the British or the rest of the people of Europe, you have imposed upon them a political union and when the people in 2005 in the Netherlands and France voted against that political union when they rejected the constitution, you simply ignored them and brought the Lisbon Treaty in through the back door.

What happened last Thursday was a remarkable result, it was indeed a seismic result, not just for British politics, for European politics but perhaps even for global politics too because what the little people did, what the ordinary people did, what the people who have been oppressed over the last few years and see their living standards go down – they rejected the multinationals, they rejected the merchant banks, they rejected big politics and they said, actually, we want our country back, we want our fishing waters back, we want our borders back, we want to be an independent self-governing, normal nation and that is what we have done and that is what must happen. And in doing so we now offer a beacon of hope to democrats across the rest of the European continent. I’ll make one prediction this morning – the UK will not be the last member state to leave the EU.

The question is what do we do next – it is up to the British government to invoke Article 50 and I have to say I don’t think we should take too long in doing it. I totally agree, Mr Juncker, that the British people have voted, we need to make sure that it happens.

But what I would like to see is a grown-up and sensible attitude to how we negotiate a different relationship. I know that virtually none of you have ever done a proper job in your lives or worked in business or worked in trade or, indeed, ever created a job, but listen, just listen.

You’re quite right Mr Schulz, UKIP used to protest against the establishment and now the establishment protests against UKIP, so something has happened here. Let us listen to some simple, pragmatic economics.

We between us, between your countries and my country we do an enormous amount of business in goods and services, that trade is mutually beneficial to both of us, that trade matters – if you were to decide to cut off your noses to spite your faces and reject any idea of a sensible trade deal the consequences would be far worse for you than it would be for us. Even no deal is better for the United Kingdom than the current rotten deal we’ve got, but if we were to move to a position where tariffs were reintroduced on products like motor cars then hundreds of thousands of German workers would risk losing their jobs.

Why don’t we just be pragmatic, sensible, grown-up, realistic and let’s cut between us a sensible, tariff-free deal and thereafter recognise that the UK will be your friend, that we will trade with you, we will co-operate with you, we will be your best friends in the world but do that, do it sensible and allow us to go off and pursue our global ambitions and future. Thank you.

Below is the text of the speech made by Nigel Farage in the European Parliament on 18 November 2002.

Madam President, it is on record that the outline regulations on the common fisheries policy were not agreed until eight hours after the Community had opened the accession negotiations with the United Kingdom in 1971. The head of the British delegation, Sir Con O’Neil, remarked that these two events were not unconnected. Prior to that there had hardly been any interest in a Community fisheries policy because the founding six had virtually no fishing resources. Britain, Ireland, Denmark and Norway all had rich coastal fisheries and they had been kept in good condition by effective conservation measures.

O’Neil attests to this; experts from the British Ministry of Agriculture produced a report showing that British waters were literally teeming with fish, whilst there were very few within the fishing limits of the present Community countries. The main evidence for this is that Community waters did not attract foreign fishermen, while British waters most certainly did. After 30 years of the CFP, Britain’s waters no longer teem with fish. To paraphrase Sir Con: ‘These two events are not unconnected’. Yet still members of the Committee on Fisheries seem unable to make the connection. They call for more technical and human resources. They want more money for research. They want management plants, sustainable development, integrated policies, multiannual plans, the application of the precautionary principle and, wait for it, target reference points for biomass and fishing mortality. If jargon were the solution, Member State waters would still be teeming with fish, the CFP would be a world-beater. But all that jargon does is to hide an uncomfortable truth: the common fisheries policy has not worked, does not work and cannot work no matter how much reform is dressed up in flowery words. As long as fish are considered to be a common European resource, there will be no sense of ownership or responsibility. Predatory fishing becomes the norm. It is an inevitable consequence of the policy and leads to the depletion of stocks. Reform is not the solution. The CFP cannot be reformed. It has proved to be incapable of reform. It should be scrapped and fisheries should be managed once again by national governments.

Below is the text of the speech made by Nigel Farage in the European Parliament on 18 December 2002.

Mr President, there are two aspects to this issue: firstly, the problem of excluding unwanted migrants from the European Union – or at least controlling their access; and, secondly, the reasons for migration.

Excluding population pressure, political instability and regional war, it is clear that the main pressure stems from economic disparities. In short, the bulk of immigrants seeking access to the European Union Member States are economic migrants. Therefore, any successful policy must deal with not only the exclusion issues but also the causes of migration.

Here it seems clear the European Union is making things worse. Virtually all its external policies in respect of third countries and its policies towards the candidate countries seem geared to causing migration from less-developed countries. The Union has rigid quotas, tariffs and other protectionist policies restricting trade with third countries. While it subsidies its own industries – especially agriculture through the unreformed common agricultural policy – and it dumps subsidised goods on the world market, all of this destabilises third-world economies. In terms of fishing agreements, the Union pillages third-world waters, instead of encouraging local industries. It also takes skilled, educated workers from these countries, depriving them of the building blocks of economic development.

All of this cruelly exposes the imperialism of the European project. Instead of getting on with practical issues, you launch upon idealistic common policies. These policies are making the problems worse. It would make far more sense to stop damaging third-country economies, rather than embarking on these extraordinary new ventures. In other words, leave immigration control to the Member States – a policy that my party supports – and address the failures of existing policies. There it seems to me, in deference to the Council member present, you must try harder.