Murnaghan Interview with Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP, 11.10.15

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now there may not be a date for a referendum yet but the battle lines are already being drawn over Britain’s membership of the European Union.  Key business figures, politicians and even a former head the Army have been pinning their colours to the mast and last week saw the launch of a second exit campaign too with the cross-party Vote Leave but it is competing against a rival group, Leave.EU which has the backing of UKIP.  The party’s leader, Nigel Farage, joins me now.  A very good morning to you, Mr Farage. That’s the simplified version of what’s going on, there are a lot of campaigns on the leave …

NIGEL FARAGE: You’re wrong, your introduction is wrong.  I support every campaign.

DM: What, even the ins?

NIGEL FARAGE: I support every campaign to get us out of the European Union.  I am not going to be partisan about this and say I’ll back this group over that group, I’ll back everybody that wants us to be outside the European Union.  The point is, it’s been put that the leave campaign is divided, they are two completely different campaigns.  One, the Leave.EU campaign has got 200,000 people signed up to it, it’s non-party political and it’s trying to reach millions of voters.  The other which is Vote Leave, is a Westminster based group making business arguments, they are completely different things and actually I think they are complementary.

DM: Okay but it just so happens that in the Vote Leave, the Westminster based one, is your only MP and colleague, Douglas Carswell.

NIGEL FARAGE: Well he’s in Westminster and he’s with a group of people who have worked …

DM: But he’s not in your one.

NIGEL FARAGE: I’m not in any campaign.  Please, can we get this straight, I am not in any campaign. I’m the leader of UKIP, we are out all over the country holding public meetings campaigning, I’m in Gateshead tomorrow night doing it.  There are two groups who have set themselves up to be umbrellas, I support both of them but they are both completely different.

DM: But the issue of leadership does loom. You are a seasoned campaigner, you know, you saw it in the general election, we’ve seen it in the referendum campaign in Scotland, the public who need to make their decision need to get a handle on someone, a figurehead, someone leading this.  For the out campaign that’s you isn’t it?  In the public’s mind you are most associated with that message.

NIGEL FARAGE: I think to be honest with you it needs to be several people.  I’m sure when we see the in campaign they are not going to have just one person.  Okay, Stuart Rose is heading it up but he’s not the only guy that’s going to appear on your programme, there will be other spokesmen and spokeswomen for them as there will be for our side of the campaign.  I lead UKIP, we’re the people that have forced this referendum onto the agenda, we’re going to be out doing our thing and we will work with anybody but I think what’s really important, what’s been forgotten here is there are millions of people out there who don’t normally vote in referendums, who can be brought in to vote if we are prepared to talk about believing in our country and controlling our borders. There are also a whole swathe of people on the left of politics, alright, who potentially are eurosceptic and who are not going to be attracted to a Westminster based campaign which is mostly run by Conservatives.  So we need different elements to all of this.

DM: So there is a mixed message in danger of coming across, if you are not going to unify the message because you also left out of it, Mr Farage, the group that so far are saying we are waiting for the renegotiation to take place, we don’t know which way we’ll go.  We might go if we don’t like what the Prime Minister gets.  

NIGEL FARAGE: Well the answer to that is quite simple, what renegotiation?  It was pretty clear last week when I met the French President that there is no renegotiation and if you look at today’s Sunday Telegraph, you have just been through the reviews, what the British government is asking for frankly is nothing.  At the heart of this, there are lots and lots of arguments but at the heart of this is the reason the ICM poll shows 52% would vote to stay in the European Union if we could control our borders.  If we can’t control our borders that falls to 36%.  

DM: Just let me ask you about that because you mentioned it, it was extraordinary footage I watched when you delivered your speech there in front of Mr Hollande, you called him a pipsqueak, you called his country a pipsqueak.  How did that translate then into French?

NIGEL FARAGE: I’m not sure what the translators made of it!  Look, 25 years ago when we were pushing towards a political European Union, pushing towards a single European currency, France and Germany had equivalent strength.  The point I was making is that now it is a completely German dominated European Union.

DM: So are we pipsqueaks as well in the UK because we are still in an EU dominated by the Germans?

NIGEL FARAGE: Quite frankly what Mrs Merkel says is what happens and that happens whether it’s to do with the euro, whether it’s to do with the migration crisis, she is very much in charge.

DM: Let me get back to the Leave … the campaign to get out.  You talk about figures on the left and there are figures within the Conservative party, Jeremy Corbyn has said he is not entirely sure about the European Union, can you see figures like that?

NIGEL FARAGE: Well Jeremy Corbyn for 40 years has been against Britain being a member of the European Union.  He was a fan of Tony Benn, nobody made the democratic argument against being members of the European project better than Tony Benn.  Benn was a great patriot and believed we should govern our own country, not surrender control of our parliament and our courts elsewhere and Corbyn, we all know that Corbyn wants to leave the EU but he finds himself the leader of a party, and within that parliamentary party, who have been almost completely taken in by the European project so he has backed off sadly.  It’s a shame.  

DM: But do you think he could still be convinced, obviously not share a platform with you but ….

NIGEL FARAGE: Why not?

DM: Do you think Jeremy Corbyn could …?

NIGEL FARAGE: Look my position is I think this is the most important question we are going to face in our lifetimes.  I think left wing politics and right wing politics are irrelevant compared to the issue of do we control our own country, do we control our own borders.  I’d share a platform with pretty much anybody.  

DM: Including Jeremy Corbyn?

NIGEL FARAGE: Of course.  

DM: Would you share one with Lord Lawson who is on your side it seems but says he doesn’t want to have any dealings with xenophobic parties, he was referring to UKIP.

NIGEL FARAGE: I don't think I’m posh enough for him but despite being abused, which I’m used to, I’d still share a platform with him, of course I would. I want to win this referendum.   I’m not interested in factionalism, I’m not interested in party tribalism, I want to win this referendum.

DM: And we’ve left out addressing now elements of the Conservative party.  There are many within the Conservative party who are already, I know you’ve been speaking to them, you recruited one of them, they are outers.  

NIGEL FARAGE: I think a lot of the Conservative party is in that position and what is really clear is that the Conservative party are bitterly, bitterly split over this.  Perhaps they have been for four decades but on the one hand you have got Cameron and Osborne who basically are going to offer us the status quo and on the other you’ve got Boris and Theresa May making demands that look pretty impossible so I think Mr Cameron is in for a pretty tough time.  I am certain that in the Conservative party in the country well over half of them now want to leave the EU.

DM: Boris Johnson would be a feather in the out cap wouldn’t he?

NIGEL FARAGE: Well we might just get him, we might just get him and he’s a recognisable figure and that would be good news.

DM: Okay, Mr Farage, very good to see you, thank you very much indeed. UKIP Leader, Nigel Farage there.