If you’re feeling bored why not Google the top 10 moments of The Nigel Farage Show on LBC in 2017.
It’s a rewarding listen. At number six, caller Tony asks: “If, two or three years down the line, the UK economy is suffering as a direct result of us leaving the EU, are you prepared to apologise to this country and leave politics altogether?”
Farage’s reply? “If Brexit is a disaster, I will go and live abroad. But, Tony, it isn’t going to be a disaster. We’ve just managed to get ourselves in a lifeboat off the Titanic.”
Fast forward six years to Newsnight’s Victoria Derbyshire pointing out to Farage this week that Brexit is causing a 4% shrinkage of our economy, a £40billion drop in tax revenues, growth and investment lag way behind similar-sized economies, and a fifth of Leave voters wish they were back in the EU, and the man who conned the nation into those lifeboats admitted: “Brexit has failed.”
Ah, yes. You could almost feel the joy in heaven over a sinner repenting. It was like Dr Frankenstein confessing he wanted to drive a stake through his monster’s heart.
Yet instead of catching a flight to Patagonia, or wherever disgraced right-wing fanatics flee to these days, Farage hinted at a return to politics to put right the Tories’ Brexit treachery.
As caller Peter, who took the number-five slot in LBC’s 2017 highlights, told Farage: “You are one of the biggest con men and hypocrites in the history of British politics.”
But he’s in good company. With global firms now saying that Brexit is an “existential threat” to the future of car-making in this country, the motley crew of fake patriots who steered Britain towards the iceberg to satisfy their ambitions are either jumping ship or hiding in their cabins.
Those political titans who vowed Brexit would fix the NHS, keep out foreigners, bring better-paid jobs and a soaring economy have gone very quiet as their deceit has been unmasked.
Remember David Davis promising a “no-downside” Brexit with “the exact same benefits” of EU membership, Michael Gove telling us in terms of deal-making “the UK holds most of the cards”, and Jacob Rees-Mogg boasting that food bills would fall outside the EU? Shysters one and all.
The real disgrace of Brexit is that most of those who masterminded it have gone on to achieve wealth and power through ministerial jobs, seats in the Lords, lucrative shows on TV channels, and the speaking circuit or financial windfalls from forecasting the negative effects on the British economy.
Meanwhile the ordinary people who were quite happy in the EU with their freedom to trade and work across Europe, and those who were seduced by the “take back control” myth, are paying the price.
As leading Leaver Ann Widdecombe now tells us, far from food prices falling, the poorest among us should accept they can’t even afford to make a cheese sandwich. It’s beyond shameful.
One of the many inspirational sights in Liverpool during Eurovision was the amount of young Brits walking around waving EU flags. It offers hope.
That one day the gaping wound this country inflicted on itself will be healed as the next generation reclaim the cultural and economic opportunities their deluded elders stole from them.
