Boris ‘Hasn’t Got a Clue’! Farage Slams Tories For ‘Rudderless’ Response to Migrant Crisis

Farage
Nigel Farage via Facebook

Nigel Farage has accused the British government of being “utterly rudderless” in the face of a growing migrant crisis in the English Channel and said that Prime Minister Boris Johnson doesn’t have “a clue” how to manage post-Brexit Britain.

The Brexit leader, who has hinted at a possible political comeback over the Conservative government’s failures to stop illegal boat migration, said that the issue  — which he has long highlighted — runs the risk of turning into a “national crisis” and that the government is “utterly rudderless” in dealing with it.

“I think it is possible that by the spring or summer of next year this [the Channel crossings by migrants] will become a national emergency,” Farage told the Sunday Express.

“I think the numbers that will come will dwarf what you are currently seeing. I’ve not been wrong on a single prediction on this.

“You can put 20,000 police on the beaches in France but if the pull factors remain as strong here, namely four-star accommodation, three square meals a day, healthcare, dental care, spending money and the massive illegal economy that thrives in Britain with slave conditions, although nobody dares want to talk about that whether it is in Leicester or wherever it is.”

Mr Farage argued that the Tory Party and Prime Minister Johnson never actually believed in reducing migration, but merely paid lip service to voters during the Brexit referendum.

“Boris Johnson didn’t even want to talk about migration in the referendum, he said, adding: “They mentioned it because they got electoral advantage from it, they never meant it.”

The apparent lack of a desire to reduce immigration was perhaps demonstrated by Health Secretary Sajid Javid on Sunday, who told Sky News that the UK should be “very proud” of having expanded the asylum system to allow tens of thousands to settle in Britain.

Mr Farage, who stepped back from frontline politics in February following the UK’s official departure from the European Union, warned that the British public is growing tired of the Conservative Party’s inability or unwillingness to confront the crisis in the English Channel, which claimed the lives of 27 migrants this week, including a pregnant woman, after a boat capsised off the French coast.

“The majority of Leave voters, the vast majority of Conservative voters see [immigration] as an absolutely defining issue and he hasn’t got a clue how to do this.

“I think there are millions of people now who literally would not vote. The Corbyn bogeyman has gone. It is difficult to see how Starmer could be worse.”

On a possible return to the political fray, the former Brexit Party (later rebranded as Reform UK) leader, said “never say never” and that he will think about it. Mr Farage claimed to have been contacted by big Tory donors, who have become disillusioned with the left-wing agenda of the supposed Conservative government.

“They are not taking advantage of Brexit, we have got our country back but we have not changed politics for good,” he said.

Even without Mr Farage at the helm, Reform UK, which is now being led by former businessman Richard Tice, has been steadily gaining in the polls, rising to six per cent in a general voting preference in the latest survey from YouGov, putting Reform UK on par with the long-established Liberal Democrats.

“It’s amazing given that the brand name isn’t even established yet. Is there an appetite for something? Yes, there really is,” Farage said.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka

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