Nigel Farage used his maiden Commons speech to slam the ‘Remainer Parliament’ today.
The Reform leader laid into his fellow MPs as being more Europhile than his previous MEP colleagues in Brussels.
He also warned that Keir Starmer will not tackle legal or illegal immigration. But he was heckled as he told how he had been dismissed as ‘sad’ for highlighting the Channel boats crisis – with Labour politicians shouting ‘you still are’.
Mr Farage said Westminster is ‘very different’ to the European Parliament, where he spent nearly 21 years.
The Clacton MP told Commons: ‘It’s smaller, there is not a chauffeur-driven Mercedes available for each member, no large lump sums of money which you don’t have to spend on anything and show no receipts for and I wonder whether perhaps that’s why so many in the British political system seem to adore the European Union so much, because it is a rather wonderful place to work.
Nigel Farage used his maiden Commons speech to slam the ‘Remainer Parliament’ today
‘What I perhaps didn’t expect was to come here and to find I’m more outnumbered with my Reform team, more outnumbered here than we were in the European Parliament.
‘Because there are more supporters of Brexit in the European Parliament than I sense there are in this Parliament of 2024.
‘This is very much a Remainers Parliament, I suspect in many cases it’s really a re-joiners Parliament.’
Mr Farage said the population explosion due to immigration was ‘having the biggest impact on the quality of life of ordinary folk’.
‘Perhaps the Labour Party might want to reflect themselves on the last period of Labour Government, where we had home secretaries like David Blunkett far, far to the right of people like the shadow home secretary today,’ he said.
‘You came to Britain illegally during the last Labour government your feet didn’t touch the sides, you were gone, you were out.’
Mr Farage demanded a referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
The Clacton MP old the Commons: ‘We will not stop the boats, even if we send a handful to Rwanda, we will not stop the boats by attempting to smash the criminal gangs.
Mr Farage said Westminster is ‘very different’ to the European Parliament, where he spent nearly 21 years
‘We’ve been doing that to the drugs industry in Britain year after year, decade after decade with no success whatsoever.
‘The financial rewards for smuggling people across the English Channel can now net a gang two to three million euros a week.
‘Whatever prison sentences or penalties are put upon them, there will always be people volunteering to make millions of euros a week.
‘We will only stop this if we start deporting people that come illegally, then they won’t pay the smugglers. But we’ll only do that by leaving the ECHR.
‘But I’ve got a fun suggestion that I think would liven up politics, engage the public and see a massively increased turnout: why don’t we have a referendum on whether we continue to be members of the ECHR?’
