The UK has voted to leave the EU, and the resignation of the Prime Minister is just the first of many seismic shocks that the country will experience in the wake of this historic decision. In US dollar terms, the UK has fallen from 5th to 6th largest world economy. Scotland’s clear intention will be a second independence referendum, having voted to Remain. The events demand clear heads and the steady hands of statesmen. While Nigel Farage can be credited with the birth of the referendum, his statements following the result prove once and for all that he is unfit to play any significant part in the future for Britain that he has brought into being.
During the debate, Nigel Farage epitomised the worst in the Brexiteers. Farage's small-minded, racist campaign for British independence was shunned by the Leave camp, and rightly so. His staggering assertion during his victory speech that Leave had won “without a single bullet being fired” in the immediate wake of Jo Cox’s killing was obscene. Farage represents the worst of us: not the optimism and pluck of the Leave campaign, but the hateful divisiveness of the pub saloon bore.
Britain’s future is precarious. Remainers will hope that they were not just wrong about the referendum outcome, but also about the economic forecasting. The £200billion lost by the UK economy this morning suggests that the Brexit shockwaves will continue. Farage has never had an economically literate plan for Britain, with UKIP’s policies veering between interventionist wealth taxes and wild libertarianism. The country, bitterly divided by the referendum, needs unifying figures in government, not the angry, anti-immigrant bluster of Leave’s most vicious campaigner.
If Scotland votes for a second time to leave the 300-year-old Union with England and Wales, Britain won’t just drop from 5th too 6th in the rankings of global economies, it will cease to exist. This would mean an end to our seat on the UN Security Council, and the collapse of our influence around the world. The Leave campaign must move quickly to find ways to rally the markets and unify the country behind this brave new world, they cannot do so by carrying the baggage of UKIP along with them. Not just a marmite politician, Farage has proved to be an allergen during a campaign that won despite his involvement, rather than because of it.
Today the country requires “fresh leadership” in the words of David Cameron as he announced his departure. That leadership is likely to come in the form of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. That leadership must find accommodation for a youth that will feel like their future in Europe has been stolen from them by older generations, and cool the atmosphere of hostility that has defined the referendum campaign. It is a time for calm magnanimity from the winning team, not Farage’s brand of pathetic triumphalism.
Britain has been wounded both by the campaign and the outcome. Leave must convince the 48 per cent of the country that disagreed with their campaign. With a vote of no confidence tabled in Jeremy Corbyn, this may be Labour’s opportunity to trigger a snap election and to seize power. The stark reality for the Conservative party is that it fell out over this contest, lost a Prime Minister and with him, most likely, a chancellor, too. Britain has chosen the harder, less traveled route. At no point in our postwar history have we ever needed statesmen and women to lead us wisely. We are sailing into stormy waters, and Nigel Farage cannot be trusted near the helm of the ship.
