Leader of UKIP criticizes Trudeau for backing Remain during referendum campaign
I’m afraid that the whole international political community rallied to Mr. Cameron and the status quo,” Mr. Farage said in an interview on Sunday referring to Mr. Trudeau who was one of many world leaders who supported Britain staying in the EU.
He added that Mr. Trudeau would have never endorsed Canadians giving up similar powers under the North American Free Trade Agreement.
“I mean I’d love the Canadian prime minister to tell you guys that you’ve decided to make Nafta a political union, and that you are going to transfer all Ottawa’s authority to someone else, that you are going to have foreign courts overruling you,” he said. “How long would you last? A day? A week? And yet that’s what the Canadian prime minister was effectively recommending to us. I wonder sometimes whether foreign leaders genuinely understand what the European Union is.”
He said “whatever Trudeau said, the fact is that the United Kingdom now has an opportunity to chart a much freer course in the world.”
Mr. Farage also had tough words for Mr. Carney, who repeatedly warned that Britain would face serious economic consequences if it left the EU, including a possible recession. Mr. Carney has defended his remarks, saying it was his duty as the central bank governor to point out risks to the economy. But Mr. Farage and others on the Vote Leave side have said Mr. Carney went too far.
“I don’t want to be disparaging about one of your nationals,” Mr. Farage said Sunday. “I don’t think the Governor of the bank of England behaved in an independent manner during this campaign at all. And I think there will be some real questions in parliament about whether it’s appropriate for him to continue in that role.”
Mr. Farage co-founded Ukip in the early 1990s, modelled partly on Canada’s Reform Party, and has been fighting to get Britain out of the EU ever since. It was largely the rising popularity of Ukip that prompted Mr. Cameron to promise a referendum on the EU in 2013 if the Conservative’s won the 2015 election. When the Conservatives took office last year, Mr. Cameron negotiated some new powers for Britain within the EU and then put that to a vote on June 23. More than 17.4 million Britons voted to leave the EU while about 16.1 million voted to remain.
Mr. Farage was a controversial figure during the referendum campaign and he was not part of the official Vote Leave side, which was led by Conservative MP Boris Johnson and Justice Minister Michael Gove. But now that Britons have voted to leave, Mr. Farage is being taken more seriously as someone who understood the pulse of the nation better than most. Ukip has only one elected MP, but that could change now that Mr. Cameron has resigned and another election could be held this fall.
“I’m extremely happy, extremely happy that the ordinary people, the little people have told the establishment what they think,” he said on Sunday.
And he said even though Ukip has fulfilled it’s long-held dream, the party will remain and could become a stronger political force.
I think there are opportunities [for Ukip] but I also think there is a job to make sure that our Westminster political class, many of whom are somewhat gutless…that they actually carry out the will of the people and it is Ukip being there and posing a threat that will make them do that,” he said.
As for how Canadians should react to last week’s vote, Mr. Farage said: “I think Canadians should rejoice that the country in the world that they are closet to in every way, just got back its democratic rights; rights that Canadian and British people stood side by side in two world wars fought and died for.”
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