Murnaghan Interview with Nigel Farage, MEP, leader of UKIP, 24.04.16

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, after that stark warning from President Obama, after his intervention in the European Union debate last week, his most likely successor has followed suit, Hillary Clinton has echoed the President in backing a strong United Kingdom in a strong European Union.  Leave campaigners branded the US President a lame duck after his warning that Britain would be at the back of the queue for an American trade deal if they did leave the European Union.  Well I’m joined now by one of them, the UKIP leader Nigel Farage, a very good morning to you Mr Farage.  Well President Barack Obama, he’s just gone and Hillary Clinton weighs in, do you object on the basis that they should just keep their noses out in spite of the fact that they are the most powerful nation on earth and have a special relationship with this country?

NIGEL FARAGE: Well I think if we were to intervene, if a British Prime Minister were to intervene in the Presidential election America would go absolutely berserk and say this was ridiculous outside interference.  I’d rather he’d said nothing but let’s just analyse what he did say in your little clip there.  He said that we’d be at the back of the queue didn’t he, back of the queue, interesting isn’t it?  

DM: Do you smell a rate with queue?

NIGEL FARAGE: Interesting isn’t it?  Americans don’t use the word queue, they use the word line so he’s come over here to parrot the Downing Street line, he’s done it again for the interview yesterday where he said a trade deal could take ten years, I mean just put a nought on, why not?  Just exaggerate the whole thing.  He’s parroting the Cameron line so it’s not just the political establishment in Britain clubbing together but it’s the global political class clubbing together.  

DM: But okay, queue, line, he wouldn’t say it whatever the word is if he didn’t believe it.  

NIGEL FARAGE: Well no, they’ve just concluded a trade deal with Oman, the Americans have done a trade deal with Australia that was signed, sealed and delivered within ten months, you would have thought that one of their major trading partners in the world would be quite important to them.

DM: Okay, well let’s take the …

NIGEL FARAGE: So it’s purely political, this is not about trade, this is purely political.

DM: Well let’s take even the ten months because this is significant.  We know, and this is a fact, that investment decisions are on hold at the moment until the referendum …

NIGEL FARAGE: Oh no they’re not.  

DM: This is coming from economic surveys, the pound is depressed, so even if you negotiate the trade deal in ten months you’ve still got ten months of uncertainty.

NIGEL FARAGE: First things first, Deutsche Börse  have just bid 20 billion for the London Stock Exchange, Toyota are investing money, Avon are moving their European headquarters to London – there is plenty of investment still coming into the UK at the moment.  The pound is weak, do you know what, the pound has been in a bear market since July 2014, I used to do this for a living, I know about these things, all right, and sterling will go lower regardless of the result.   Let’s face it, British public finances are not in a great state.  All right, so that’s why the pound is going down.  Now on the big questions, we do not have a trade deal with America at the moment and yet we do lots of business.  China doesn’t have a trade deal with the European Union and yet sales it 300 billion euros worth of good every year.  You don’t actually have to have trade deals to do business but it’s preferable if you do and remember, when we vote to leave we invoke Article 50 of the European Treaties which means that for up to two years our trading relationships are completely unaffected, giving us all the time in the world to sort out new relationships.

DM: You agree with Boris Johnson, don’t you, the Mayor of London, about the President’s background having an effect on his view about the UK.  Of course Boris Johnson referred to his part-Kenyan ancestry and you’ve said about Barack Obama because of his grandfather and Kenya colonisation, would you have said that?

NIGEL FARAGE: I don't think that’s the point.  I’ve made these points about Barack Obama for several years, it struck me over the spill in the Gulf when BP was the responsible company, Barack Obama kept calling it British Petroleum and did it in a certain way but I don't think that’s the point …

DM: You think he’s anti-British?

NIGEL FARAGE: I don't think he is very pro-British and …

DM: Because of his Kenyan grandfather?  

NIGEL FARAGE: What the reasons are frankly don’t matter, what matters is the intervention he’s made in British politics.  

DM: So was Boris Johnson wrong then?

NIGEL FARAGE: I’m not saying Boris was wrong but I think if you’re seen to be attacking the man and not the ball, that’s not where we need to be.

DM: But you’ve done it.

NIGEL FARAGE: Well I’ve been saying it for some years.

DM: Does that make a difference?

NIGEL FARAGE: I could just deny my past but I can’t really do that.  I’ve said for some time that Barack Obama is not a pro-British president but frankly that is not the issue, the issue here is he’s spouting a line.  He’s saying he doesn’t think the UK should be an independent sovereign democracy and he’s saying …

DM: But it does matter, Mr Farage, because you are talking about motivation, about why he’s saying it and you’ve agreed with Boris Johnson in the past that he has a certain animus towards the UK because of Kenya and colonisation.  

NIGEL FARAGE: There is a bigger motivation and that is with this trip and with what he’s said he’s guaranteed his financial future.  He’s done the bidding of the giant American corporates who want Britain to stay in the EU.  Why?  Because they want this TTIP, Tran Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership deal done so that the big American corporates can buy up chunks of our public services, including the National Health Service.  That’s a bigger motivation.

DM: Let me move  this on to the overall campaign to leave, of course Boris Johnson in that camp that got the official designation.  Do you think he is messing it up?  

NIGEL FARAGE: I would say this, we are just over a week into the campaign proper, I think the Leave campaign has got two fundamental problems.  The first is that it appears that the Leave campaign is just the Conservative cabinet ministers and it’s fantastic that we’ve got six of them board but if that’s all we see, well that’s no good because nearly 75% of the electorate did not vote Conservative in the elections last year.  I was on a TV debate, a radio debate on Friday with Nick Cash who leads the RMT and he made a very eloquent left wing case as to why the EU was actually bad for workers and bad for worker’s living standards.  I think to win this referendum you’ve got to see trade union voices, you’ve got to see Labour voices, you’ve got to see UKIP voices – we’ve got to be appealing to a broader group of people than just the Tory electorate.  The second problem is if we debate economics and trade we can go round in circles for weeks and the public will be none the wiser, in my opinion, at the end of it but if we do that that’s kind of defending our goal because they’re attacking us on this.  What the Remain camp do not want to talk about is the fact that we have an open door to 508 million people, what they don’t want to talk about is that two of those murderers in Paris had come back into Europe using the Greek islands, posing as migrants and what we as a Leave campaign need to do is to start talking about those issues which the Remain camp will find difficult to defend.

DM:  Well as you’ve described it there, you’ve been side lined, how frustrated does that make you?  

NIGEL FARAGE: Well I’ll be very frustrated if we lose the referendum and it’s up to those of us – and I’m one of them – it’s up to those of who the official Leave campaign don’t wish to use, to go out there around the country and make our own noise and I will be doing that.  

DM: Talking about foreign political leaders offering support, we heard there your criticism of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and of course weighing in on your side Marine Le Pen from the Fronte National, apparent she is coming over in a couple of weeks to the UK.

NIGEL FARAGE: Apparently.  

DM: Are you going to meet her?  Do you welcome her?

NIGEL FARAGE: No, I don't think it’s particularly helpful, I’m not quite sure why she wants to do it although she is a committed Eurosceptic and indeed – it is very interesting this isn’t it, right across the continent there are now Eurosceptics on the right like Le Pen but equally on the left like Podemos and Syreza in Greece and everywhere we are seeing a massive growth of Eurosceptic parties and of course the Dutch referendum the other week that said no to the Ukraine deal, a referendum in December in Denmark that said no to European Justice and Home Affairs.  So there is a big Eurosceptic movement now right across the continent.  

DM: So Marine Le Pen – come if you like or please don’t come, what is it?

NIGEL FARAGE: I don't think her intervention would help our side of the debate, I’d rather she didn’t come but I have heard some ridiculous ideas this morning put around that we should ban her from entering the country and that clearly would be even more ludicrous.  

DM: Okay, now tell me about UKIP, we’ve talked about this before, win or lose what is the future for UKIP – we’re hearing you talk about rebranding it, refashioning it, repositioning it and parallels drawn with Grillo and the Five Star party in Italy.

NIGEL FARAGE: It’s really interesting, Beppe Grillo had a sort of internet guru called Jean Roberto Casaleggio behind him who died a couple of weeks ago, they are now on 30% of the national opinion polls and they have swept the youth vote in Italy.  Similarly an organisation called [Greenstiel] in the Netherlands got nearly half a million signatures for that referendum that took place the other week.  What I’m seeing, because I’m out round the country every day because there is a massive set of elections coming up in a few weeks’ time so I am all over the UK and I keep meeting people between 18 and 30 who are enthusiastic Ukippers, we’re right behind you mate, love your videos, we retweet your … and yet …

DM: Do you think the image is a bit fusty, you appearing in a pub with a pint of Old Wallop or whatever it is, it’s not really appealing to the 18 to 25s is it?

NIGEL FARAGE: Well I’m saying the opposite to that, I’m saying I’m meeting them in pubs and elsewhere and I’m finding some really enthusiastic support from this segment of the population and yet not one of them has considered joining UKIP, they just don’t think about filling in a form and writing out a cheque and having a membership card in their wallet.  That generation don’t engage with politics like that.  We saw a specimen of this last year, when the Labour party said you can join for three quid and have a vote, huge numbers of people joined the Labour party. I think by going online, by modelling some of what Beppe Grillo has done in Italy, we could make UKIP a big political party.

DM: Well let’s do the parallels here, you just said it there but you didn’t say the name, modelling on what Jeremy Corbyn’s done, Nigel Farage thinks that Jeremy Corbyn has done a good job!

NIGEL FARAGE: No, I’m saying the Labour party attracted hundreds of thousands of new members last year, particularly a younger generation that got involved and I think if UKIP does that and we give our membership a say, engage them.  Say look by giving us a few quid online you effectively become a shareholder and we will say to you …

DM: And they will take policy decisions?

NIGEL FARAGE: And we will say to you we are considering going for this as an area of policy direction are you with us, are you against us?  Engage them, that’s what Grillo’s done and it’s worked.  

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