It may haven taken more than a decade, but chickens are now coming home to roost for Nigel Farage. The falsehoods used to sell Brexit have been largely debunked, and on Sunday morning, Laura Kuenssberg confronted him with one of the biggest whoppers of the lot.
ALSO READ: Russia ‘clearly interfered’ in Brexit referendum, Andy Burnham says
‘It’s just not true’ – Laura Kuenssberg grills Nigel Farage
In 2016, Nigel Farage argued that Turkey joining the European Union would increase the burden on the UK taxpayer. He claimed, among other things, that the nation was ‘being fast-tracked into the EU’, and also took a swipe at the aid payments the UK has sent them over the years.
However, no evidence – either before the referendum or after – suggests Turkey has at any point being earmarked for fast-track membership. In fact, Turkey first applied to join the EU way back in 1987, and still remains outside the organisation. A 39-year wait certainly doesn’t suggest anything has been hastened.
Watch: Nigel Farage confronted over EU-Turkey claim
On her flagship BBC show, Kuenssberg badgered Farage on the matter, telling him on four separate occasions that the claim ‘was not true’. Despite attempting to double-down, the Reform leader couldn’t escape her line of questioning, and instead attempted to explain how the situation had changed.
Support for Brexit has hit the skids
Later this month, Prime Minister Andy Burnham will head to the UK-EU summit, with the sole purpose of aligning Britain closer with its European neighbours. It’s understood that new agreements between both parties could be worth up to £17 billion – potentially undoing some of the Brexit-induced damage.
Since officially coming into effect in 2020, the barriers Brexit has posed to trade and business has been attributed to an economic slump in the UK, with some experts estimated that the country’s GDP took a hit of 6-8% over the past five years – equating to dozens of billions of pounds in lost revenue.
The longer it goes on, the more unpopular it becomes. Polling from IPSOS, released last week, shows that Brits are warmer on rejoining the bloc than ever before. Over 56% of participants said they would vote to reverse Brexit, with just three in 10 of these polled saying they wanted to stay out of the EU.
It is against this backdrop that Nigel Farage now finds himself walking an ever-narrowing tightrope. Critical support for Brexit is being undone by lived experience, and unflattering financial data. And the fibs used to prop it all up no longer stand up to scrutiny – as demonstrated earlier this morning.