Nigel Farage announces his retirement from active party politics

Nigel Farage announces his retirement from active party politics
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Nigel Farage, emblematic figure of the Brexit movement, has announced that he is withdrawing from active politics.

“I achieved what I had planned to do,” he said in a video posted on Saturday on Twitter. “The work of my life has been to get us out of the European Union.”

“We’ve got Brexit. It’s not perfect (…) but with the vaccine, we’ve now seen the benefits,” he noted in a reference to Britain’s leading position in the fight to develop and roll out vaccines against the novel Coronavirus.

"I’m not retiring,” Farage said. “Yes, I’m getting out of active party politics. I think I’ve done my bit, but I’m not retiring. There are lots of things that I want to fight for and campaign for, in particular the increasing influence of the Chinese Communist Party over our whole way of life.”

He also aims to be involved in environmental issues such as clean oceans and tree planting, and pledges to remain active in the media and in social media.

The outgoing Reform UK Party leader had a warning for his successor, Richard Tice. “Leading a political party (…) that challenges the establishment is really a seven-day-a-week job, and you’ll find huge sections of the media really vehemently opposed to you,” he said.

Nigel Farage (56) helped found the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in 1993. He was its leader from 2006 to 2009 and from 2010 to 2016. Until the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union in 2020, he was a member of the European Parliament, where he was co-chair of the Eurosceptic group, Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy.

He then left UKIP and became leader of the Reform UK party, formerly the Brexit Party.

The Brussels Times


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